
FLS 

2014 

086553 




■re ii i n IHmukTrij ~ v jir • ifwr 




v" .^4\4^x\v<'- v < 




wwvwwwwsnw 


iVVWWWWV 


VVAWWWWWWV 












LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

’3'X£'3T O 

dljitp, Ifu... 

Shell. . 3 . 5.. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




























/ 








I 



































































. 






















































































































































































































' 


















Spiritual Crumbs 


FOR HUNGRY LITTLE SOULS; 

OK, 


Simple Instructions on the Virtues, for the 
Children of the Catholic Church. 


TO WHICH ARE ADDED SHORT STORIES FROM 
THE BIBLE. 



MARY E. RICHARDSON. 


With the Approbation of His Eminentm.Cardinal Gibbons. 


V 17 &~X 


New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : 

BENZIGRR BROTHERS, 

Printers to the Hoty Apostolic See. 

iSgr 





o 




MJjtl (Diktat. 

D. J. McMahon, D.D. 


Imprimatur. 

Michael Augustine, 

Archbishop of New York. 


New York, October 26, 1892. 


The Library 

of Congress 


LC Control Number 


tmp96 033984 


Copyright, 1892, by Benziger Brothers. 















PREFACE. 


S his little book was suggested by the 
virtues that I saw practised among 
a family of little children with 
whom it was my happy privilege to 
pass a winter several years ago. Every 
Sunday afternoon they would gather 
around me, to hear me talk of our good 
God, and explain to them, in a simple 
way, the truths of our holy religion. 
The immense good that resulted from 
these Sunday “sermons” induced me 
to send them off to other hungry little 
souls, who, I trust, may be as much ben¬ 
efited. Our divine Lord, Who said to 
Peter, “ Feed My sheep,” said also, 
“ Feed My lambs.” Much has been 



4 


PREFA CE. 


written for the grown-up ones of 
Christ’s Church, and but little for the 
younger portion of the flock: hence 
my feeble efforts for these lambs; and 
should the result be what I hope and 
pray, I shall be amply rewarded. 

Jersey City, 

Feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. 



CONTENTS 


Preface, . 

Love of God, ...... 

Humility,. 

Mortification, ...... 

Patience,. 

Mildness, ....... 

Obedience, ....... 

Simplicity, ....... 

Diligence, ....... 

Prayer, . . . .... 

Confidence in God, ...... 

Purity,. 

Charity, ........ 

SHORT STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 

The Creation, ....... 

The Fall of Adam and Eve, .... 

Cain and Abel, ...... 

The Flood,. 

The Sacrifice of Abraham, .... 
Joseph and his Brethren, .... 


PACE 

3 

7 

13 

21 

28 

36 

43 

50 

57 

65 

72: 

79 ’ 

85 , 


95 ' 

100 

104 

106 

nr 

114 


5 




6 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Joseph the Ruler of Egypt, .... 119 

Joseph’s Revenge, ..... 123 

Joseph’s Last Years and Death, . . . 129 

Moses, ..132 

David,. -135 

The Child Samuel, ..... 139 

Elias,.145 

Eliseus, ....... 14S 

The Little Captive Maid, .... 15c 

Job,.152 

Daniel in the Lions’ Den, .... 154 




SPIRITUAL CRUMBS 


FOR 


HUNGRY LITTLE SOULS. 


£ooe of ®o&. 


“ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole 
heart.”— St . Matt . xxii. 37. 



HE first question in your catechism is, 


“ Who made you ?” my dear chil¬ 


dren ; and the answer to it is a suf¬ 
ficient reason for you to love God. Long 
before you were born He thought oiyou, 
and He intended that you should one 
day come to live with Him in heaven. 
No sooner were you born than He in¬ 
spired your parents to carry you to the 
church, to receive the holy Sacrament 
of Baptism, and to make you heirs 



8 


LOVE OF GOD. 


to His heavenly home; and if you do 
not go there it will be your own fault. 
VVe cannot see God, because He is a 
spirit; but we read that He once ap¬ 
peared to Moses, and He was so bright 
and so beautiful that Moses hid his face 
and bowed down before Him ; and that 
even the angels in heaven veil their 
faces in His presence. Only think how 
much He must have loved you little 
ones to want you to be His companions 
in heaven! Now, although we cannot 
see God, we know how lovely and how 
good He must be to have thought of 
you for so long a time, and to give you , 
bad and naughty as you are sometimes, 
so many good things. You have father 
and mother, sisters and brothers, and 
kind friends who are always doing 
something for you. And who prompts 
them but our good God? Who whis¬ 
pered to mother to watch over your 
little cradles, and to see that you were 



LOVE OF GOD . 


9 


warm and comfortably tucked up at 
night? Or who prompted your father 
to work for his little ones, to give them 
nice clothes, food to eat, and to send 
them to school? Who gave you the 
power to walk, and to run about, and to 
enjoy the sunshiny days? Who gave 
you eyes to see the beautiful flowers, 
and brought you into the world with 
ears to hear sweet music, and a tongue 
to tell all your wants, your little sorrows, 
and your joys? Are you any better 
than the poor boy whom we met to-day 
both blind and crippled ? Then why did 
God give you all of these blessings over 
others? Is it not because He loved you 
so much, and wanted you to love Him 
more? Ah! my dear children, do you 
ever think of this? Do you ever stop, 
in the whole day, to thank God for 
these great gifts? He sees you from 
His bright throne above, and waits, oh l 
so patiently, for just one little word of 



IO 


LOVE OF GOD. 


love and thanks from His dear children. 
Suppose you were to receive a beauti¬ 
ful present from your father or your 
mother, what would you do? Would 
not your little hearts overflow with 
love and gratitude, and would you not 
thank your parents for such a present? 
And does not our good God do more 
for you? Look at your little hands, 
how they move; your feet, how they 
obey you. Who but God gives you 
this power? Who but He keeps the 
little machinery of your body going on 
from day to day until your death ? Do 
you ever thank Him for this? Many 
little children are lame and unable to 
move hand or foot, and you are blessed 
with the power of both. Again, who 
among you thinks of the blessings that 
you enjoy in having a good night’s 
sleep ? Many little ones whom 1 know 
say their night prayers, yet there are 
only a few who say their morning pray- 



LOVE OF GOD. 


I I 

ers; and are not the dangers of the 
night as great as those of the day ? We 
read of great fires in big cities where 
houses are burned down in a night, 
filled with men, women, and children, 
many of whom are burned to death. 
We also read of people who are found 
dead in their beds. Now who protects 
you from these great dangers—who but 
God, my dear little ones, Who spares 
you in preference to the thousands who 
are taken from life in one night? Then 
will you not rise from your little beds, 
and let your first thought be of God, 
and as soon as you are dressed kneel 
down and thank Him for His love and 
watchfulness over you ? I have read of 
a very pretty custom among the French, 
which I want you all to adopt. It is 
very simple, but our good God sees and 
hears everything, and He will smile on 
His little child, and perhaps spare you 
for many years to waft this sweet little 



12 


LOVE OF GOD. 


perfume to heaven. Every morning, 
as soon as you awake and your little 
eyes are open, throw a kiss to the good 
God. It is the first thing the baby 
learns to do to papa and to mamma, 
and I want you to practise it towards 
our good God. It will shape your little 
actions through the day, and our dear 
Lord will remember this first aspiration 
of love, and will reward you. Don’t 
forget, through the day, sometimes to 
say, with your little heart raised to God, 
“ O my God, I love Thee, and I thank 
Thee for the blessings of this day.” And 
as each day goes by, and the years roll 
on, the little book in heaven which 
records our good deeds will be filled 
up with golden crumbs from your daily 
lives, and will entitle you to a crown in 
heaven. 






“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”— 
St. Luke xiv. ii. 

S soon as you were born, my dear 
children, our good God appointed 
an angel to walk by your side, and 
to watch over you, until the end of your 
lives. This great prince, although you 
cannot see him, for he is a spirit, notes 
down very carefully each little act of 
your lives ; and at the great day of 
judgment this little account-book will 
be read out before you, and you will be 
judged by it . Now, to be sure that 

you have the love of your good angel, 
who will fight for you as long as life 
lasts, and who will defend you at the 
hour of death, you must be very humble. 
“ Humility is the foundation of a'l vir- 
13 


14 


HUMILITY. 


tue,” so the great St. Augustine says, 
and without it we cannot enter heaven. 
I have very seldom met a humble 
child. Most of you have a very good 
opinion of yourselves. Some are proud 
of their grand home, fine dress, and 
great family ; while the majority, even 
among the poorest, are vain of their 
persons, their pretty faces, or their smart 
doings and sayings. Now let us see 
what cause we have for pride. We are 
all made of the dust of the earth, and, as 
a proof of it, we are no sooner dead 
than the body crumbles into dust. I 
once heard a lady say that she had 
visited the tomb of her father after he 
had been dead several years. She had 
the coffin taken out of the vault, and 
the lid taken off, and behold! there 
was not a thing in the coffin—nothing 
but a kind of dust or powder which 
had settled in the bottom of it. Where 
was the great man who had been buried 



HUMILITY. 


*5 


in so much style, and dressed up in satin 
and velvet ? All gone to dust. And such 
you will be in a few years after you are 
dead. Then why should we be proud 
of our beauty, or of our fine dress and 
grand homes? 

I must tell you of a little girl who 
was very proud of her beauty, and how 
God punished her for it. She used to 
spend a great part of her time before 
the glass, looking at herself, arrang¬ 
ing her hair, and admiring her pretty 
face. Some time ago a terrible disease 
broke out in her neighborhood, and she 
took the fever and was very sick, and 
came very near dying; but Almighty 
God spared her, and when she recovered 
her beauty was all gone and her face was 
all marked with great red spots which 
would never come off. Our good God 
wanted to save this vain little girl, and 
He sent her this sickness to draw her 
thoughts away from her pretty face, 




i6 


HUMILITY. 


and to show her that her vanity was 
displeasing to Him. Now there are 
some little ones who are very vain of 
their fine clothes. It is true that we 
should be very thankful for the comfort 
we have in wearing them, be they plain 
or elegant; but when thoughts of pride 
arise from the wearing of your garments, 
say to yourself, “ God made the little 
sheep whose wool covered his back be¬ 
fore it did mine; ” or, “ He made the 
cotton which grows in the fields and 
which furnishes the material for my 
clothes.” How foolish to be vain about 
such things ! Again, there are certain 
little ones who are so stuck up with 
pride that they scorn their little neigh¬ 
bors who are poor and not so well off in 
this world’s goods. I know that you 
have heard the story of Dives and Laz¬ 
arus. Dives was a rich man, and Laz¬ 
arus a poor one. One day Lazarus came 
to the gate of the rich man and begged 



HUMILITY. 


*7 

a few crumbs from his table, and he was 
refused; and the dogs came to the poor 
man and licked his sores. A short 
time, afterwards Dives and Lazarus both 
died. Lazarus went to heaven, and 
Dives to hell; and the Bible tells us 
that Dives looked up and saw Lazarus, 
and begged him to come to him and to 
bring him even a drop of cold water to 
cool his tongue; but Lazarus could not 
get to him. See how God punished 
that proud rich man ; and such will be 
our punishment if we scorn the poor as 
Dives did. You all know about the first 
Christmas Eve on earth, when poor St. 
Joseph and the blessed Mother walked 
around the town of Bethlehem to try and 
find a shelter for the night, and every 
door was closed against them. The night 
was cold and dark, and snow was on the 
ground, and still there was no place in all 
that town where our blessed Mother 
could get a night’s rest. Now don’t you 



i8 


HUMILITY. 


think that it would have been the same 
case had they come to this town this 
winter? Suppose those good people in 
Bethlehem had known that the blessed 
Mother carried with her our blessed 
Lord from heaven, how differently they 
would have acted ! And yet our precious 
Lord chose to come to His creatures in 
that humble way, to try us and to prove 
our love for Him; and so it is often the 
case that there are people whom we 
meet, of humble and poor appearance, 
who are angels in disguise. Then let us 
look upon every one as a child of God; 
and let us show our humility by doing 
good to those who are poorer than our¬ 
selves. No matter how rough or how 
miserable they look, they were all made 
by God, and His precious blood was shed 
for the meanest creature on this earth 
as well as for you ; and some day, when 
we get home to heaven, we will be 
surprised to find many of these dear 



HUMILITY. 


l 9 


souls come to welcome us to the feet of 
Jesus; and there we will learn that only 
the poor in spirit shall see God. 

Before 1 close, I must tell you the 
story of St. Paphnutius. He was a very 
holy old man, and lived in the desert by 
himself, fasting and praying, and doing all 
sorts of penance. One day the devil, 
who tempts good people as well as 
bad, put it in his mind that he must be 
very holy after living in this way so 
many years in the desert; and the 
thought came to Paphnutius that he 
would ask Our Lord to show him a man 
who was his equal in sanctity; and our 
dear Lord told him to go to the neigh¬ 
boring town, and the first person that 
he saw would be as holy as he was in 
His sight. So St. Paphnutius started 
off, and coming into the town he saw a 
poor man playing the bagpipe for 
some children to dance, and he asked 
him what he did for h.is soul. He 



20 


HUMILITY. 


answered that “ he was very poor, but 
that he gave a mite sometimes to those 
who were worse off than himself; that 
he never omitted his Christian duties, 
and was contented with his lot to pipe 
away for a few pennies a day, with 
which he bought bread.” And this was 
the man who was equal to St. Paph- 
nutius before Godl So you see, my dear 
children, that we must never judge from 
outward appearance, and that the only 
way to find favor with our good Lord, 
and to be sure of His mercy, is to think 
ourselves nobody, ox just what we are, and 
no more before God. What matters it 
to us that we are blamed or despised 
by the world, if only we are great and 
without fault in His sight! How per¬ 
fect was the humility of our blessed 
Mother, who, when the archangel said 
she was to be the Mother of God, re¬ 
garded herself only as His handmaid ! 



illortificiition. 


“ If any man will come after Me, let him deny 
himself.”— St. Matt. xvi. 24. 

TjrY H E N our good God made Adam 
y^r and Eve and placed them in the 
beautiful garden of Eden, He 
gave them permission to enjoy them¬ 
selves, and to partake of everything that 
He had placed there, except of the fruit 
of one tree—a certain apple-tree that He 
forbade them to touch. Now this com¬ 
mand of God was to teach them two les¬ 
sons—one of obedience and the other of 
mortification or self-denial; and both of 
these virtues we must practise if we 
want to enter heaven. I will tell you 
to-day about mortification, and how 
necessary it is not only for grown-up 
Christians to practise it, but even for 
21 


22 


MORTIFICA TION. 


very small children. The Bible tells us 
that God is so pleased with a little act 
of mortification that He never fails to 
answer our prayers.* Now I don’t 
expect you little ones to fast like grown¬ 
up people, but I will tell you how easy 
it will be for you to practise this great 
virtue in a great degree. We read in 
the lives of the saints that many of 
them were little children, who became 
saints by their beautiful spirit of self- 
denial. Now all of you can in one 
way or another practise mortification ; 
and as our dear Lord says that we are 
known to be His children by the sign of 
the cross,t so we can carry a very little 
cross, for His dear sake , every day of our 
lives. Now let us see how easy it will 
be. You often receive some good thing 
from papa or mamma; it may be candy 
or cakes, or it may be money. Now 

* St. Luke xviii. 13, 14. 

f St. Matt. xvi. 24. 



MORTIF1CA TION. 


23 


when you get these gifts, you can put 
by just a little of them for God’s poor , 
or you can mortify yourself just a little 
bit by dividing your share with some 
other child. It is not much to do, and 
some of you are naturally so generous 
that you would do it anyway without 
making a merit of it; but what I want 
you to do is to gain heaven by every 
little act of your lives, and these little 
offerings are very acceptable to God. A 
great many people who do not believe 
in God are generous; but you are 
Christians, and you do these little acts 
of self-denial with the intention of pleas¬ 
ing our divine Lord and to help you 
bear a bigger cross when you grow 
older. It is not very pleasant, when the 
day is fine and you want to have a walk in 
the fields, for mamma to say, “ My child, 
you cannot go ; you must look after the 
baby and amuse him,” or, “You must 
go on this errand,” or, “You must 



24 


MORTIFICA TION. 


study your lessons.” All this is very hard 
to bear, but you can practise the virtue 
of mortification in a great degree on such 
occasions. Now I have seen many little 
ones get very angry and look like a 
thunder-cloud if they were prevented 
from enjoying a frolic that they had 
planned; and although they obeyed 
their mother and stayed at home, they 
were so ugly and so disagreeable that 
their poor mamma almost wished that 
they were out of her sight. Now tell 
me, does this look like a Christian child? 
and is it not a sure sign that you have not 
taken up your little cross? When you 
were baptized you were signed with 
the cross, and your sponsors promised 
that you should live like a Christian ; 
that is, like Christ, and you know that 
His life on earth was the cross from the 
stable in Bethlehem to the day of His 
crucifixion on Calvary. 

Again, you love our dear Lord very 



MORTIFICA riON. 


25 


much, and when you think how many 
times in the day you sin and displease 
Him. do you not also wish to show Him 
how very sorry you are by offering up 
some little thing as a sacrifice, suffering 
some little pain, or doing something very 
cheerfully for His sake—something that 
is not altogether pleasant ? But you say, 
“ That is so little to offer to God.” Yes, it 
is very little, but, small as it is, God sees 
it and will reward your little intention. 
The blessed Mother was a very poor 
woman, and what did she offer up in the 
Temple to God ? Two little doves and a 
pair of pigeons. It was very little , that’s 
true; and yet her gift was most accept¬ 
able to God. Oh, how very easy it is for 
you to become holy on earth and a saint 
in heaven if only yon begin! When you 
get up in the morning, say, “ I am going 
to offer up to our dear Lord this day 
some little act of self-denial for the sin 
of anger that I was guilty of yesterday,” 



26 


MORTIFICA TION. 


or any other sin that you know you 
committed; and so on every morning* 
of your lives remember to make this 
offering, and as the days go by you will 
grow in grace and in virtue, and each 
little act that you perform with a desire 
to please God, my dear little ones, will 
be remembered by Him, not only in this 
world, but in that beautiful country where 
we hope to live with Him forever. 

I cannot close without giving you a 
little example from the lives of the saints 
which will show you the necessity of 
mortification in rooting out your little 
faults while you are young. St. Dorotheus 
relates that one day an aged monk, find¬ 
ing himself with his disciple in a wood 
of cypress-trees, commanded him to pull 
up some of them by the roots. First he 
pointed out one that was young and 
had just begun to shoot up from the 
ground: this his disciple pulled up 
with one hand very easily ; then another. 



MOR TIFICA T/ON. 


27 


whose roots were a little deeper: this 
yielded to the same hand, but not so 
easily; then one that was grown to be a 
little tree: to pull up this one he had 
to use both hands; then another, that 
was full-grown: but when he came to 
this fourth, he found it very difficult; 
he tried over and over again with all 
his strength, but he could not move it. 
Then the old monk said : “ Mv son, this 
is exactly the case with our faults: when 
they are young, with only a little mor¬ 
tification they may be overcome very 
easily ; but if we allow them to grow 
and take root in our souls, then it is 
beyond our strength to root them out, 
nor can it be done without the aid of the 
almighty hand of God.” Therefore, my 
dear children, if you desire to acquire 
virtue, you must watch over the first 
fault that you commit, and try to over¬ 
come it, in its birth , by little acts of 
sorrow and of mortification. 



Patience. 

“He that taketh not up his cross and folioweth 
Me is not worthy of Me.”— St. Matt. x. 38. 


y dear children, the road to heaven 
jJiMSl is very narrow, and if we wish to 




walk along it with ease we must 


set out leaning on the staff of the cross 
—that is,we must resolve to suffer every¬ 
thing with patience for the love of God. 
All of us owe great debts to Almighty 
God on account of His great gifts to us, 
as well as on account of the many sins 
which we commit against Him. Now 
we have no means of paying off this 
great debt except by bearing patiently 
all the trials and tribulations that He, 
in His mercy, sends to us. We have a 
good example of this in the two thieves 
who were crucified with our dear Lord. 

28 


PA TIENCE. 


2 9 


One of them, by his patience, paid his 
debt and went to heaven; the other, 
by his impatience, was buried in hell. 

Now, as we want to go to heaven by 
the shortest and quickest road, we are 
going to see how easy it is to practise 
this beautiful virtue of patience. First 
you must remember that everything 
that happens to us is known to God. 
He wills it, or at least permits it, and 
He intends it for our good. In the 
Bible we read that not even a little bird 
falls to the ground without His know¬ 
ing it; and are you not of more value 
than a little bird? Again, He tells us 
that the hairs of our head are all num¬ 
bered. Now, if He knows all these little 
things, don’t you believe that He knows 
every little ache or pain that you suffer? 
Yes, my dear little ones, He not only 
knows it, but He sends it in order that 
you may bear your little cross patiently, 
and in that way pay the debt you owe 



30 


PA TJENCE. 


Him before you die. There is not a 
day of our lives, no matter who we 
are—the richest man on earth or the 
poorest beggar, old or young—that we 
have not something to suffer in one 
way or another. You little ones have 
crosses as well as grown-up people. It 
may be a toothache, or a headache, or 
some other ache, or it may be that your 
parents scold, or your sisters and broth¬ 
ers are cross, or you are accused of 
something of which you are not guilty, 
or your companions in school abuse you 
or make fun of you. All these things 
may happen some day in the life of a little 
child. Now I don’t want you to forget 
that Almighty God has His eye upon you 
and knows all about this cross. What 
1 want you to learn is, how to bear it. 

Some of you have very quick tem¬ 
pers, and if any one speaks cross to 
you or insults you, immediately you are 
like a hedgehog—you bristle up, put 



PA TIENCE. 


3 1 


out your little mouth, and give back 
not only black looks but sharp words, 
and often blows, to your offender. Do 
you remember the words of our divine 
Lord when He was hanging on the 
cross and the cruel Jews were mocking 
and insulting Him? He raised His 
eyes to heaven and said, “ Father, for¬ 
give them, for they know not what they 
do.” You , a little child, utter naughty 
words, and strike those who offend 
you; and your Lord, the King of 
heaven and earth, answers not a word, 
but prays that His enemies may be for¬ 
given. Oh, what a beautiful lesson of 
patience have we in this example of 
our blessed Lord, and how necessary 
it is for you to learn it while you are 
young! You know that I have told 
you it is easier to pull up a young 
plant than an old tree. Hence, to con¬ 
quer these little roots of impatience, we 
must learn to practise patience. 



32 


PA TIENCE. 


Sometimes Our Lord sends a little 
cross in the shape of sickness; you have 
a fever, your little head aches, the noise 
of the children disturbs you, the doctor’s 
medicines are disagreeable to your taste, 
and a host of other little troubles arise. 
Now we are never more sure that the 
cross comes from God than when we 
are sick; and how easy will it be for 
you to practise patience and bear this 
cross, if only you think of it! St. Lid- 
wina suffered the most acute pains for 
thirty-eight years, and not a word of 
complaint escaped her lips; and when 
she came to die an angel appeared to 
her with a crown in his hand, and told 
her that this crown was made of jewels 
that she had furnished by her patience 
in sickness. See how easy it is to make 
a crown for ourselves, if we only pa¬ 
tiently bear the little crosses that come 
when we are sick. But sick or well, 
every day you have an opportunity to 



PA TIENCE. 


33 


practise patience; sometimes it comes 
from our neighbors, sometimes from 
ourselves. You saw that little child 
yesterday who got a splinter in her fin¬ 
ger—how she ranted, and screamed, and 
would not let her mother even look at 
it or pull it out. Now what was the use 
of all this? She suffered a great deal 
more pain by her obstinacy and want of 
patience, and she lost the opportunity of 
bearing something for the love of God ; 
and who knows what a big jewel she 
might have put in her crown by it? 
Ah ! my dear little ones, God is so good, 
and is so anxious for us to come and live 
with Him in heaven, that He takes notice 
of every little thing that we do for His 
sake, that He may reward us hereafter. 
Will you not try, then, to please Him, 
and when an occasion arises for you to 
be patient, will you not remember that 
you are His little lambs, and be very 
patient and gentle, like that little animal, 



34 


PA TIENCE. 


and let every one see that you belong 
to Him ? Let me tell you how much 
good even the example of patience does 
to others. When I was a little girl I 
was at the convent school; and one day 
we girls were walking in the yard, and 
as we passed a little altar or shrine, we 
noticed a good sister kneeling very de¬ 
voutly before it, saying her prayers. 
We were all Protestants, and of course 
could not understand the altar nor the 
shrine. Well, we three bad girls thought 
that we could have some fun by teas¬ 
ing this poor sister; so we gathered 
an apronful of rose-leaves, and went 
up behind her and threw them all over 
her. Now what do you think this good 
sister did? It would have served us 
right if she had gotten up from her 
prayers and taken us all into the house to 
the superior for punishment; but in¬ 
stead, without looking around to see her 
offenders, she picked up each little rose- 



PA TIENCE. 


35 


leaf one by one, and said a prayer for 
each of us on it; and this sweet example 
of patience, with her pious prayers, con¬ 
verted every one of us to the Catholic 
faith ; and she died soon afterwards the 
death of a saint. Then let us try, from 
this day forward, to bear with patience 
all the little trials and crosses of our 
lives, casting our eyes on our dear Sav¬ 
iour, Who suffered so much for our 
sakes, and we shall soon find that our 
tribulations seem to us as flowers com¬ 
pared to His thorns. St. Teresa says, 
“ Learn to suffer something for the love 
of God, for without it there is no 
merit in serving Him.” 



ittilbnrss* 


“Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the 
land.”— St. Matt. v. 4. 


“ -jg&ijr ildness and sweetness of disposi- 
jjjygjl tion are the very essence of char¬ 
ity,” so says St. Francis of Sales, 
and few knew as well as he the meaning 


of these words; for he was a very quick¬ 
tempered child,and he became the sweet¬ 
est and mildest of men. Now how do 
you suppose this lion became a iamb ? I 
will give you his own words: “ I prayed 
daily for twenty-two years to overcome 
the sin of anger; and I determined, 
though my blood boiled like water in a 
tea-kettle, that 1 would never give an 
outward show to my feelings.” That is, 
h6 Avould never look angry, nor speak a 
36 


MILDNESS. 


37 


cross word ; and so completely did he 
overcome this sin that he was never 
seen without a smiling- countenance, and 
was never heard to speak a harsh word. 

There is nothing in the world, my 
dear children, so frightful to look at 
as a person who is angry. You, perhaps, 
have never seen a crazy person; and still 
to me those violent creatures who tear 
themselves and foam at the mouth are 
nothing compared to a little child in a 
fit of anger. Oh, what a sight before God, 
and with what horror must your good 
angel stand and look at you! You all 
know what a noise it makes in a family 
when a child gets angry—how red its 
face becomes, how its little eyes sparkle 
with rage, and how often it fights and 
scratches every one who comes near it. 
Is there anything in the world so like an 
animal? You remember those pretty 
little lines: 



38 


MILDNESS. 


“ Let dogs delight to bark and bite, 

For God has made them so ; 

Let bears and lions growl and fight, 

For ’tis their nature to. 

But little children should never let 
Their angry passions rise ; 

Their little hands were never made 
To tear each other’s eyes.” 

I always think of them when I see a 
child in a fit of anger. Think what a 
terrible thing this sin is, and if allowed 
to grow upon you, what terrible things 
may happen ! I have read of a man who 
was hanged, who confessed on the gal¬ 
lows that “ if he had learned when a 
child to control his temper, he would 
not have come to this awful end.” Now, 
there is but one way to overcome this 
evil passion, and that is by the practice 
of the beautiful virtue of mildness. 
There is scarcely one of you who does 
not meet through the day some opposi¬ 
tion to your wishes; or you may meet 
some person who is not agreeable to 



MILDNESS. 


39 


you—it may be a child, a servant, or a 
grown-up person—no matter who. I 
want you to promise me to wear a very 
pleasant countenance and meet them al¬ 
ways with a smile, and, no matter what 
is said, to try to answer very sweetly 
or not answer at all. If you are made 
angry, you had better bite your tongue 
than utter a word. 

I must tell you the advice that a very 
wise man gave to the Roman emperor 
Augustus Cassar. He told him whenever 
he felt angry not to say a word till he 
had counted over the twenty-four letters 
of the alphabet; and I think the advice as 
good as any I know for a little child, for 
before you get through the alphabet the 
person who offends you may go away, or 
you may cool off and have time to think 
of your fault. Another good way to over¬ 
come anger is to run away from your 
offender ; to think of something pleas¬ 
ant; to look at the flowers blooming so 



40 


MILDNESS. 


sweetly; to listen to the little birds sing¬ 
ing such sweet songs—anything to make 
you forget the injury and to help you con¬ 
quer this sin of anger. I think it a good 
rule to remembery our guardian angel and 
act as though you saw the prince before 
you. Some children, you know, appear 
like angels away from home and act like 
devils at home. They are so vain that 
the) 7 want to have the good opinion of 
others, and therefore behave themselves 
very nicely when they go out; and it 
is to these little proud ones that I give 
this last advice: If you are afraid to 
show your anger before the great ones 
of the earth, how much more should you 
fear the great angel from heaven who is 
at your side! 

Another source of anger is the habit 
that children get of contradicting others ; 
and this is really a great evil which 
grows upon us and makes us hated by 
every one. Who likes a pert and 



MILDNESS. 


4 1 


cross-grained child, and who does not 
love a quiet, sweet-tempered child ? And 
as without faith it is impossible to please 
God, so without mildness it is impos¬ 
sible to please man. In fact, there is 
nothing that so delights our neighbor 
as a sweet disposition, and a child who 
wears a sweet smile and speaks kindly 
to all is loved by every one, both at 
home and abroad. You have often heard 
that more flies are caught by a cup of 
honey than by one hundred barrels of 
vinegar. Now what I want you to do 
is to be just as sweet as honey, and thus 
gain souls to God. I never saw an ami¬ 
able, sweet child who could not do what 
it chose with its brothers and sisters; 
and think what a heaven upon earth is 
that home where all the little ones are 
kind and sweet to each other; and do 
you think that our good God will fail 
to bless that home and those sweet chil¬ 
dren ? Gentleness was one of His favor- 



42 


MILDNESS. 


ite virtues, and one that He so often 
recommends that we ought to practise 
it always and on every occasion. Tell 
me, who is the favorite child in school ? 
Is she not the sweet-tempered girl who 
never gets angry, who always speaks in a 
sweet voice, who is always ready to lend 
or to help you with your lessons—who, 
in fact, is so kind that every one is 
obliged to love her ? Well, this is what I 
want you to be. Remember that we 
cannot root out the sin of anger, nor any 
other sin, without the aid of prayer. 
Beg God, therefore, my dear little ones, 
to make you gentle like the little dove 
on earth and the angels in heaven, that 
your lives may be made up of kindness 
and love for every one; and by this sweet 
and heavenly life you may gain the 
hearts of all below and the eternal love 
of your Heavenly Father. 



(Dbebieitce. 


“All things whatsoever they shall say to you ob¬ 
serve and do.”— St. Matt, xxiii. 3. 

^Arou remember, my dear children, 
jL that when I talked to you about 
mortification I told you of the 
story of Adam and Eve, and of the two 
lessons which Almighty God desired that 
they should learn, by forbidding them to 
eat of a certain apple-tree in the garden 
of Eden. Now the first and greatest of 
these lessons is obedience. They ate 
of that forbidden fruit and disobeyed 
their Creator ; and by their sin of dis¬ 
obedience death came into the world ; 
and we all must die. How terrible the 
sin of disobedience must be in the sight 
of God, to have called down from Him 
such a punishment on all mankind ; and 
43 


44 


OBEDIENCE. 


how strange it is, my dear little chil¬ 
dren, that we all have such a natural dis¬ 
like to obey ! Why is it that obedience 
is so hard to the old as well as to the 
young? It is because our greatest 
enemy is pride ; and to obey is to give 
up our will and to do that of another, 
which humbles our pride. 

Now Almighty God has placed over 
each one of us some one to command us, 
so that we may practise this great virtue 
of obedience, which is so pleasing to 
Him. Wives have to obey their hus¬ 
bands; children their parents ; servants 
their masters; and so on. So you see 
every one has to obey those who are ap¬ 
pointed over him. Did not our dear 
Lord become obedient to His Father, 
even unto death ? and shall we fail to fol¬ 
low His blessed example ? St. Alphonsus 
Rodriguez says, “To lift a straw from 
the ground, through obedience, is better 
than to preach a long sermon, or to fast 



OBEDIENCE. 


45 


for a year.” What a great thing, then, 
it is to be obedient! Children are es¬ 
pecially called upon to obey their par¬ 
ents ; it is one of the great command¬ 
ments of God, and the only one which 
is promised a reward. “ Honor thy 
father and thy mother, that thy days 
may be long in the land ; ” and I have 
seldom seen an obedient child but was 
granted a long life. Our good God 
never fails in His promises; and to you 
especially He looks to practise this 
great virtue of obedience ; for if you 
learn to be obedient when you are 
young, you will not fail in it when you 
grow old. Many little ones think they 
obey when, after they have done what 
they were about, they answer to the 
call of their mother; but this is not such 
obedience as I want you to practise. I 
want you to be promptly obedient; 
that is, no matter what you are doing, 
the moment you are commanded, that 



46 


OBEDIENCE. 


moment you must obey, and to the 
letter. 

Let me tell you of a little boy whom 
God punished for not being strictly 
obedient. He was sent to the grocer 
to get some sugar, and his mother 
told him to go quickly, and not to 
stop to look at anything, nor to talk 
to any one, but to hurry back home. 
He started off, and had got as far as the 
corner of the street when he saw a train 
of wagons coming which looked liked 
a circus. He stopped to look at them ; 
and, before he knew it, one of the men 
jumped from the wagon, and caught 
him up in his arms (for he was a little 
fellow), and carried him off. A gag was 
put in his mouth to prevent him from 
screaming, and away to the far West he 
was taken by the gypsies, and was 
made to work hard for them until he 
was twenty years old, when he ran away 
from them, and by accident returned to 




OBEDIENCE. 


47 


his home, but, alas! to find his dear 
mother, whom he had disobeyed, dead 
and buried. I knew this young man, and 
heard him tell the story, and say, with 
tears in his eyes, that God had punished 
him severely for not being strictly 
obedient to his dear mother. 

I could relate a great many examples 
of how children were punished who were 
not obedient to their parents. Many 
times we read of men who are hung, who 
say, before their death, that had they 
obeyed their mother, and kept out of 
bad company, they would not have 
come to the gallows. My dear chil¬ 
dren, the greatest satisfaction in being 
obedient is, that we can never go wrong; 
nor will we be responsible for anything 
that happens if we do the will of an¬ 
other. Therefore whatever we are com¬ 
manded to do, let us do it promptly and 
cheerfully. Think of the dear little 
Babe in Bethlehem : He knew all things 



48 


OBEDIENCE. 


and could do all things, and still He 
let His Mother treat Him like other 
children; and do you not remember 
how obedient He was to His parents 
when He went to live at Nazareth, 
and even when He was grown up, how 
He obeyed His Mother and changed 
the water into wine at the wedding- 
feast in Cana? Remember that you 
are placed under your parents by the 
love of God, and in order that you may 
gain heaven ; and let me tell you that 
one of the greatest stepping-stones to 
that happy home is through the merit 
of holy obedience. 

I cannot finish my simple discourse 
without giving you a little example from 
the lives of the saints. One day the Abbot 
Martin planted in the ground a dead 
stick, and to try one of his spiritual chil¬ 
dren in obedience he commanded him to 
water it every day until it should bud and 
blossom. The good brother punctually 



OBEDIENCE . 


49 


obeyed the order, going every day to 
fetch the water from the River Nile, 
which was two miles off ; and this he did 
every day for three long years, without 
ever complaining, or showing that he 
was tired. And what do you suppose 
happened? To show how beautiful this 
virtue is in the sight of God, the dead 
stick began to grow green, and actually 
budded and blossomed ; and this tree is 
still preserved near the monastery gate, 
in memory of this miracle through holy 
obedience. 



Simplicity. 

“ Be ye simple as doves.”— St. Matt. x. 16. 

hen our blessed Lord was once 
healing a blind man, some little 
children were brought to Him 
that He might bless them. The disciples 
wanted to send them away, but He told 
them to let them come to Him, for unless 
we all became as little children we 
could not enter heaven. He meant by 
this that, unless we became as simple as 
a little child, we could not enter the 
kingdom of God. What a beautiful 
compliment did our blessed Lord pay 
to the little ones ! So you see that He 
expects simplicity, especially in you. 
The younger the child, the more harm¬ 
less, simple, and sincere it is ; for as we 
grow up, pride grows in the heart; and 
50 


SIMPLICITY. 


51 


then come deceit, cunning-, and double¬ 
dealing. God loves simple souls so 
much that He delights to speak to them ; 
and He guides them as a mother does 
her little child who is learning to walk. 
You have often heard of wonderful 
things that are seen by poor, obscure, 
and simple souls—never by proud 
and high-minded people. Some of the 
greatest devotions in the Church have 
been given by Our Lord Himself, or by 
His blessed Mother, to these dear souls. 

Little children who are simple speak 
and act without any deceit or guile; 
they have no care, no thought of them¬ 
selves, looking up to their parents with 
confidence and without curiosity. I 
have often seen children who would 
deceive their parents for a trifle. I once 
knew a little girl who was punished for 
this sin. She did not want to go to 
school, so she pretended that she had 
a headache ; and her good mother, be- 



52 


SIMPLICITY. 


lieving her, permitted her to stay at 
home. An hour afterwards the rest 
of the children returned from school, 
saying that a holiday had been given 
them and they were all going with their 
teacher to gather flowers in the woods. 
Of course the sick girl got well im¬ 
mediately, and begged very hard to go 
with them. But her mother refused, 
saying that she had suffered so much 
only an hour before that a walk would 
injure her. Hence this deceitful little 
girl had to remain at home all day. 

Sometimes God punishes very severe¬ 
ly the cunning, deceitful child. I heard 
of one who pretended that she was 
lame and could not walk to school. 
A short time afterwards she had a 
severe sickness which really crippled 
her for life. How dreadful it is to see 
a little girl pretending to be what she 
is not! I often wonder if such children 
ever think of the all-seeing eye of God, 



SIMPLICITY. 


53 


Who reads the heart and sees all our 
actions. 

Another very great sin that we com¬ 
mit by not being simple is flattery. You 
would like certain rich people to think 
a good deal of you, and you praise them, 
and flatter them, and say a great many 
deceitful things in order to gain their 
favor. By this means you not only sin 
yourself, but you frequently make these 
people vain and cause them to think a 
great deal of themselves, which is an¬ 
other great sin. Oh, may God pre¬ 
serve us from praising or flattering any 
one, or doing anything to gain the favor 
of others! 

Another mark of a want of simpli¬ 
city in a child is that of carrying two 
faces. Perhaps you have seen one 
who is very pleasant and kind to your 
face, and, as soon as your back is turned, 
she has something unkind to say of you. 
Such children will certainly grow up 



54 


SIMPLICITY. 


very wicked, and as surely come to a 
bad end. 

Now let us see how we can practise 
the virtue of simplicity and over¬ 
come these terrible faults. It hap¬ 
pens sometimes that you forget some, 
thing that you are told to do; immedi¬ 
ately you must acknowledge your 
mistake. If you are asked for anything 
that you do not have or do not know, 
confess your ignorance or your pov¬ 
erty, and let the opinion of people go. 
You must have an eye to God alone, 
and all that you do and say must be to 
please Him. The little dove gives us a 
good lesson: she does everything to 
please her mate; so that when she is 
hatching her eggs she does not trouble 
herself about her food or anything else, 
because she is sure that he will take 
care of her and not let her want for 
anything. And it is this lesson, my dear 
children, which you must learn in order 



SIMPLICITY. 


55 


to practise simplicity. Think not of 
the world’s opinions, or what people 
think of you; but of God, Who loves 
you, and Whom you desire to please. 
Try to imitate our dear Lord’s hidden 
life when He was a child, living with 
His parents at Nazareth. He passed 
for the son of a poor carpenter, when 
He was able to make His glory shine 
through all Judea. If, then, we desire 
to be like Him, we must have a simple 
heart and a simple mind; that is, we 
must speak with simplicity and act with 
simplicity, with candor, and with truth. 
How sweet is the baby in a family, and 
how we all love him ! And why? Be¬ 
cause he is like the angels—so sweet 
and so simple. If he has a little pain, 
he shows it by his cry; if he is 
hungry, he has a way of telling his little 
wants; and if he loves you, his little 
caresses speak more than words his 
great affection. Then try, my dear 



56 


SIMPLICITY. 


children, to be like the baby, for we are 
nothing but babies in the sight of God; 
and if you love Him and act simply 
before Him, He will have an especial 
care of you, and will one day place you 
among the angels, to sing His praises 
iorever—“ for of such,” He says, “ is the 
kingdom of heaven.” 



Diligence. 

“ He did all things well.”— St. Mark vii. 37. 

S HE easiest and perhaps the best way 
for you, my dear children, to be¬ 
come saints, and that, too, in a very 
short time, is to do everything that you 
have to do in the best possible manner 
and with the intention of pleasing God. 
Your work and your play, in fact all 
your actions, are small compared to 
those of grown-up people ; but, small as 
they are, they can become true gold in 
the sight of God if you perform them 
well. St. John Berchmans made a vow, 
when he was very young, to do every¬ 
thing in the most perfect manner or to 
the best of his ability, and in this way 
he became a saint. If he was at study, 
he gave his whole attention to it; if he 


58 


DILIGENCE. 


was called upon to go on an errand, he 
did it with the greatest cheerfulness 
and in the best manner; and if he was 
at play with his schoolmates, he played 
with his whole heart to delight his com¬ 
panions; and no matter who beat at the 
game, whether he lost or won, he was 
equally pleased, because he did every¬ 
thing to please God. 

In my long life I have seen many little 
children who were careless, and who 
rarely did anything well. If they began 
a piece of work, they soon grew tired and 
threw it away ; or else they botched it up 
in such a manner that it was good for 
nothing. If called upon to study their 
lessons, they would go to sleep or idle 
away their time, and think of every¬ 
thing but their lessons. If they were at 
play, they would so soon grow weary 
and want a change, that they were al¬ 
ways disagreeable to their companions. 
And so with everything that they un- 



DILIGENCE. 


59 


dertook ; they did nothing well. Now 
what I mean by the word diligence is 
to perform all our actions in the best 
possible way, in order to please our 
good God. 

You remember I told you that you 
must take your aim in the morning as 
soon as you are awake, and offer up to 
Almighty God all the thoughts, words, 
and actions of the day, like the hunter 
who is going to shoot at a bird ; he does 
not fire his gun until he has taken his 
aim ; and so you must begin the day 
by taking your aim, which is heaven, 
and resolve to do everything in the 
most perfect manner. Little actions 
done well, and with a desire to please 
God, are very great in His sight. Do 
you remember the poor widow men¬ 
tioned in the Gospel who put only two 
pennies in the treasury ? And there 
were hundreds who were rich and gave 
large sums of money, and yet Our Lord 



6o 


DILIGENCE . 


said that she had given more than all 
the rest. Why? Because she gave 
with her whole heart all that she had, 
and the others had given only a part, 
and not with the same good intention. 

I must tell you something that made a 
great impression upon me when I was 
a little girl. I called with a lady to see 
one of the Redemptorist Fathers in the 

city of B-. We were invited into the 

little parlor to wait for the priest, and 
as we waited a good lay brother was 
on his knees, scratching with liis fingers 
and brushing with all his strength in a 
corner of the room. The lady said to 
him, “ Why is it, good brother, that you 
are so particular about that corner ? It 
looks clean, and it seems you are spend¬ 
ing a good deal of time over it.” 
“Madam,” he said, “ I work for a Mas¬ 
ter Who sees in every little hole and 
corner, and I am trying my best to 
please Him.” Now this reply of that 



DILIGENCE. 


6l 

poor lay brother has never been for¬ 
gotten by me, and often, when I have 
been tempted to slight a piece of work, 
the lesson that he taught me would 
cause me to say, “ I must do it well, for 
I work for so great a Master.” 

A good rule to help us perform all of 
our actions well is to do each one as 
though it was the last of our lives. Say, 
“ If I knew that I was going to die im¬ 
mediately after saying this lesson or this 
prayer, how should I do it?” Oh, 
think how perfectly you would perform 
your little work if you knew it would 
be the last that you would ever do on 
earth for God! Then, as we do not 
know when our good God will call us 
to account, let us begin to-day to do 
that which we would do if we knew the 
hour of our death. Let us take each 
little action as our task, and, like the 
laborers in the field, who expect their 
pay when the day is done, let us work 



62 


DILIGENCE. 


with our might to perform it well, that 
we may receive our great reward from 
our Father who is in heaven. Our 
dear Lord does not measure our pay by 
the amount of work that we do, but by 
how well it is done . It is the intention 
that He looks at, and if we do as well 
as we can, that is all He asks. We 
must try, my dear children, to imitate 
our blessed Mother, who, when she 
was sewing or spinning, would watch 
Our Lord as He played around her to 
see that no harm came to Him. So you 
must in all your actions look up every 
now and then to see if He is pleased with 
your work, and ask His assistance. 
Especially do I wish you to execute 
with all your heart your spiritual duties, 
particularly your prayers. I expect to 
talk with you on prayer alone; there¬ 
fore I shall tell you only of the dili¬ 
gence that you must practise with re¬ 
gard to your duties. First, you must say 



DILIGENCE. 


63 


them very punctually, and, secondly, 
you must say them with all your heart 
to please God. He loves to hear the 
little prayers that come from innocent 
lips, and I am sure that a child who is 
diligent in saying its prayers will never 
fail to obtain what it asks of Him. 

I cannot finish this little talk without 
telling you of St. Charles Borromeo, the 
great Bishop of Milan. He was play¬ 
ing a game of chess one day, when a 
young man came into the room to speak 
with him. St. Charles was very much 
interested in the game, and the young 
man was very much scandalized to see 
so holy a man as the Bishop of Milan 
playing with so much spirit. So he 
ventured to hint to him what he thought 
of it; and he asked him what he would 
do if he was to inform him that the 
judgment day had come. “ Continue 
my game of chess,” said St. Charles; 
“ for I began it to please my God, and 



6 4 


DILIGENCE. 


in what better employment could He 
find me?” So you see how you can 
sanctify even your play, if only you be¬ 
gin it with a desire to please God. 

I have talked a long time on this sub¬ 
ject, because I am very fond of it, and 1 
think our Christian life is founded on 
this one glorious maxim—purity of in¬ 
tention. So you must make it your 
motto, my dear children; and believe 
me that there are few crumbs so gold¬ 
en as those that are picked up through 
the practice of the holy virtue of dili¬ 
gence. 



flnmr. 

“Ask, and it shall be given you.”— St. Matt. vii. 7. 

our dear Lord delivered His 
vy sermon on the mountain, He 
told His disciples that He knew 
what they needed before they asked Him; 
but in order that they should become per¬ 
fect, even as their Heavenly Father was 
perfect, they must pray without ceasing. 
Then He showed them how to pray; 
and He gave them that most beautiful 
of all prayers, the “Our Father,” which 
you all know. Prayer, my dear chil¬ 
dren, is the key of heaven. A child 
who prays will surely be saved, and one 
who does not pray will certainly be lost. 
It is the gateway through which all 
God’s graces come, and if you close it, 
you shut off all His blessings ; for in this 
65 


66 


PR A YER. 


same sermon which He preached on the 
mountain He said, “ Ask, and it shall be 
given you.” Now, when you say your 
prayers, you talk to God. Think what 
a great privilege He has given you to 
speak to Him, and to tell Him all your 
little troubles, and to ask Him for all 
that you need. Therefore I want you to 
be very careful how you speak to Him; 
that is, you should say your prayers 
with all your heart and with great hu¬ 
mility. Whether in church or beside your 
little bed at night, when you kneel down 
to speak to our dear Lord, you must 
first be very respectful in your position : 
fold your little hands together and kneel 
down on both knees, and with your eyes 
looking up to heaven 3^011 must speak 
out the words ver} 7 slowly and distinct^, 
and with )^our whole heart. If you were 
going to ask a favor of mother, you 
would be very careful to speak slowly 
and distinctly, that she might hear you, 



PR A YER. 


67 


and you would also be very earnest in 
what you wanted. Suppose a great 
king was to send you word that he would 
give you whatever you wanted, if only 
you would come to him and mention the 
gift. How grandly you would dress to 
go to see the king! and when you ar¬ 
rived in his presence, how very polite 
and respectful you would be! And then 
when he should say, “ What will you 
have of me, my child?” would you not 
tell him with all your heart, and as 
sweetly and distinctly as you could, just 
what you wanted? Even so ; and who 
is it who says, “What is it you wish of 
Me, My little child ? 1 have all the treas¬ 

ures of heaven, and they are yours, if 
you only ask Me for them” ? Ah, if you 
only think of this when you go to say 
your prayers, how many great gifts 
will you receive from God! I have 
seen many children say their prayers 
half lying down, half asleep, looking 



68 


PR A YER. 


around them, and hurrying over the 
words as though they were racing 
through the multiplication table to get 
out of school. But you, my dear little 
ones, love God, and you know that He 
loves you, and His ear is ever open to 
receive your little petitions and to an¬ 
swer them ; therefore I know that you 
will not forget to be very careful of how 
you say your prayers. 

Now you ask, “ What shall I say to 
God?” First you bow down to Him as 
the angels do in heaven, to reverence and 
adore; then you make an act of sorrow 
for all the sins of your life, and you tell 
Him, in your simple way, how much you 
love Him, and how very sorry you are 
for your faults, and beg His forgiveness ; 
then you say the beautiful prayer that 
He taught us, and after this you mention 
all your little wants—first for your dear 
parents, sisters and brothers, and kind 
friends, as well as for your enemies, that 



PR A YER. 


69 


God may forgive them and make them 
perfect Christians ; then for yourself, for 
strength to overcome some fault and 
grace to practise some virtue, and beg 
of our blessed Mother and all the saints, 
with your good angel, to pray with you 
to Our Lord, that you may lead a holy 
life, die a happy death, and one day go 
to live with them forever in heaven. It 
is said that a child’s prayer is very power¬ 
ful with God, and that He seldom refuses 
its petitions. This, of itself, ought to 
make you very earnest in saying your 
prayers. 

In attending the great services of 
the Church, when the priest addresses 
God and prays for you, let your manner 
be most respectful, and let nothing in¬ 
duce you to speak in church, except in 
extreme necessity. “ The Lord is in 
His holy temple: let all the earth keep 
silence before Him this beautiful pas¬ 
sage we read in the Bible, and I would 



70 


PR A YER. 


like to see it written on every door of 
the house of God. I knew a little girl 
who was the means of the conversion of 
a soul simply by being very devout and 
silent in church. A Protestant lady came 
in and took a seat in the pew with her. 
The lady observed the little girl’s manner 
and how attentive she was to the altar ; at 
last she spoke to her and asked her some 
questions about the Church, and to her 
great surprise the child took a pencil 
from her pocket and wrote on the fly¬ 
leaf of her prayer-book, “We never 
speak in church. 1 will tell you by and 
by.” Now this little girl would not 
have done wrong to have answered the 
lady, as she was a stranger and knew 
nothing of our Church; but the very 
fact of the child’s silence caused her to 
wonder and to say, “ Truly this must be 
a holy place” and that one thought caused 
her conversion. See how God rewarded 
that devout child and the effect of good 



PR A YER. 


71 


example. So, whether you are saying 
your prayers or listening to those of 
others, never forget, my dear children, 
to show by every possible way your re¬ 
spect, your humility, and your love for 
God. I want you to get into this habit 
of saying your prayers now that you are 
young, for this little talk is intended for 
those who have not yet been allowed to 
receive the great Sacrament of the Altar. 
When you grow older and this grand 
privilege is yours, a more perfect way 
He will shozv you. 



(Eonfibcnce in (Sob. 

“Behold I am with you all days.”— St. Matt. 
xxviii. 20. 

rvTp'HERE is nothing more beautiful in 
■wH good children than to see the con¬ 
fidence and trust that they place 
in their mother and father ; taking it for 
granted that, as they love them so much, 
they will take care of them and will let 
nothing hurt them. If, then, you have 
this faith in your earthly parents, how 
much more must you not have in your 
Heavenly Father, Who loves you with 
such unbounded love, and Who never 
loses sight of you for an instant! Our 
Lord once said to St. Gertrude that 
when He saw a man who had confi¬ 
dence in Him, and believed that He 
was willing and able to help him, it 


CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 


73 


pleased Him so much that it stole His 
heart away, and He could not help 
but favor such a soul. 

I know many good children who say 
their prayers and practise a good many 
virtues, and yet they are very timid : they 
will not go to bed in the dark; they do 
not like to stay in a room alone ; or they 
fear something will happen to them if 
they go abroad by themselves. These 
children say they love God ; but they 
have a very poor way of showing it. God 
is everywhere, my dear little ones, and 
He is infinite goodness itself; then why 
should you not trust Him ? In the dark 
room, beside your little bed, or on the 
lone street, our good God is so near to 
you that He can hear your lowest 
whisper. Why should you fear? And, 
as I said before, if He sees that you have 
confidence in Him, and that you look 
to Him for help, He will never, no, 
never, suffer any harm to come to you. 



74 


CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 


Once there was a very holy man who 
found himself in a forest where there 
was a pack of wolves. The wolves 
hemmed him in and even began to 
tear his clothes, when, with great 
confidence in God, he said, “O Lord, 
make haste to help me!” and at the 
sound of these words the wolves ran 
off into the woods, as though they had 
been driven away by an angel. We 
read in the life of St. Rose of Lima that 
she was very timid and was afraid to 
go into a room alone in the dark. One 
evening she had stayed longer than usual 
in a little summer-house in the garden, 
and her mother, fearing something had 
happened to her, said to her husband, 
“ Let us go to look for her.” When 
Rose saw them coming she rose to meet 
them ; and as she walked along she said 
to herself, Why is it that my mamma is 
not afraid when she is in papa’s com¬ 
pany, and I, who have my good God 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 


75 


always at my side, am so full of fear? 
The thought made such an impression on 
little Rose that she never felt afraid any 
more. And you, my dear children, must 
remember this lesson; and no matter 
where you are, think that your God is so 
near you that no harm will come to you. 

Let me tell you, too, of how Our 
Lord rewards the souls who trust Him. 
Once I knew a good Sister of Charity 
who had charge of an orphan asylum 

in the city of B-. One day the 

poor children had no bread, and there 
was no money to buy it. The house¬ 
keeper came in a great hurry to tell the 
sister this bad news and to ask her 
what she should do. The good sister 
told her to trust in God; that He knew 
that they were without bread, and He 
would surely send some—not to fear. 
The housekeeper went out of the room 
very much annoyed at what she 
thought sister’s indifference. The day 





76 


CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 


went by and the evening came, and 
there was no bread for the hungry chil¬ 
dren. Still the good sister was not 
troubled, for she trusted in God ; and, 
lo! just as the little ones were wonder¬ 
ing if they would get any supper, there 
was a ring at the door-bell, and, behold ! 
there was a man with a basketful of 
provisions and an envelope containing 
fifty dollars for the orphans ; and the best 
part of it was, the man would not give 
his name, nor would he tell them from 
whom all these good things came. 

Another example I must give you, in 
the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Once 
he was on his way back to Italy from 
the Holy Land, and had reached the 
Island of Cyprus. There he found 
several vessels that were ready to sail 
for Italy. One of them was a very 
splendid vessel, and his friends wanted 
him to take passage in her ; and they 
begged the captain to take him for the 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 


77 


love of God—that he had no money to 
pay, but that God would reward him ; 
but the captain refused, and said if he 
was such a saint he had better go on 
foot over the water, for he could not 
afford to take him. So St. Ignatius 
had to get on a little boat, which 
started at the same time in the morning; 
and what do you think became of these 
vessels ? As soon as the sun went down 
a great storm arose; the rain poured 
down, and the thunder roared, and the 
wind blew, and the sea was mountain- 
high ; but God watched over His ser¬ 
vant Ignatius, and the little boat sailed 
into port and landed him safely on an 
island, while the grand vessel went to 
pieces that night, and all on board per¬ 
ished. Do you not remember the story 
of Daniel in the lions’ den, how he 
trusted in God, and the lions did not 
touch him, but came and lay down at 
his feet? And also the story of the 



7» 


CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 


three children who were cast into a 
fiery furnace by order of a wicked king, 
and they were not even scorched , because 
they trusted in God? Then why have 
you any fear, my dear children, when 
you know that He is always at your side 
and is able to take care of you ? In all 
danger and at all times, in sickness and 
in health, trust Him. He knows best 
what is good for you, and He will sooner 
work a miracle than let harm come to 
a little child who asks His protection. 
Then let us trust our good God, and 
let us often say, with all our hearts, that 
last verse of the grand old Te Deum, 
“ In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: 
let me never be confounded/’ 







Pnritt). 

“ Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall 
see God.”— St. Matt. v. 8. 

f HARlTY, it is said, is the king of all 
virtues. Then purity must be the 
queen of them all; for God, Who 
is purity itself, rewards this beautiful vir¬ 
tue by a sight of His glorious majesty. 
The apostle St. John tells us, in the 
vision which he had of heaven, that he 
“ beheld the virgins following the Lamb 
wherever He went ”—that is, the pure, 
chaste souls who had died and gone home 
to heaven. So you see that it is only the 
pure who stay in His presence and who 
see His face. 

Now let us see what purity means, 
and how we are to practise it. We sin, 
my dear children, in thought, word, and 
79 


8o 


PURITY. 


deed ; but there is no sin so deadly as 
impurity, even in thought. As soon as 
you are born sin is rooted in your soul, 
and after the waters of Baptism have 
cleansed you the devil tries in every way 
to entice you to sin against holy purity. 
And why is he so earnest about this sin? 
It is because even in thought it is so 
dreadful, and he knows that if a child is 
once guilty of this sin he has the key to 
ail other vices and can quickly make it 
his own. Oh, what a terrible thought, to 
belong to the devil and never to see the 
face of our dearest Lord ! Children who 
commit this sin are usually very shy and 
very sly. They are also liars: their 
tongues seem to be unable to speak the 
truth, because their father the devil is 
a liar. Our dear Lord says a liar is an 
abomination to Him, and that He will 
punish the liar in a lake of fire. Oh, 
how dreadful to see a little child* given 
up to these terrible sins! Truth and 



PURITY. 


81 


purity,these two great virtues go hand in 
hand. God is the God of truth and the 
Lover of purity, and I never saw these 
virtues separated. In other words, I 
never saw an impure person who was 
not a liar. The devil seems to try to 
make a child lie in order that he may 
make it fall into this greater sin. 

How, then, must you live to keep your 
little souls pure ? First, with regard to 
yourself. Whenever you are alone and 
tempted to commit a sin against holy 
purity, remember that God’s all-seeing 
eye is upon you, and say with all your 
heart—as St. Columbo did when the 
wolves were about to attack him—“ O 
Lord, make haste to help me!” This 
sin is indeed a great wolf that destroys 
both soul and body; and if you call 
upon our dear Lord to help you, He 
will send an angel to drive him away. 
Let all your actions be very modest: 
never wash or dress yourself without 



82 


PURITY. 


keeping covered as much as possible; 
remember that you have a great prince 
standing at your side, and for him you 
will be careful not to expose yourself. 
When you are in company with your little 
friends or playmates, never say or do 
anything that you would not be willing 
your blessed Mother should hear or 
see; this will keep your little talk and 
your little actions pure. A Queen of 
France once said to her son that she 
would rather see him dead than to know 
that he had committed a sin against 
holy purity; and I, too, would rather 
fold you in your little shroud, and 
fasten you up in your coffin, than to 
know that you were guilty of the sin of 
impurity. 

There are many little children who 
have never been taught the evil of 
impurity ; then try to be little apostles 
yourselves, and warn them against this 
great sin. Tell them how terrible the 



PURITY. 


83 


judgments of God have been towards 
sinners, and how soon He can strike 
them dead and send them to hell. 
You remember the story of Ananias 
and Saphira, mentioned in the Bible, 
who told a lie and were immediately 
struck dead. In my own native town 
there lived a man who was very im¬ 
pure. One day, in a fit of drunken¬ 
ness, he cursed his God ; and he was 
immediately struck dumb. He lived 
for twenty-five years afterwards and 
was never able to utter a sound. Oh, 
think, my dear children, of these ex¬ 
amples when you are tempted to com¬ 
mit sin ! Beg of God to give you a pure 
heart, and to give you the grace to keep 
from sin. There is something so beauti¬ 
ful in the face of a pure child, something 
so like an angel, that no one can help 
loving- it. Its manners are modest, its 
dress is modest, and its conversation 
is modest. It is not a bold child; it 



8 4 


PURITY. 


is all simplicity, and you can depend on 
what it tells you. Is it any wonder 
that our divine Lord should love it so 
much and should desire it to keep His 
company in heaven? Oh, then, try 
very hard to live such a holy life on 
earth as to entitle you to a place by 
His side in that blessed home where 
you will live with Him forever! 



(£l)aritt}. 

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”— St. 
Matt. xxii. 39. 

S I began this little book with the 
zErpt. first and greatest commandment 
of God, so must I end our in¬ 
structions on the virtues with the second, 
which is like to it; for if we love God 
with our whole heart, we must love all 
whom He loves—viz., our neighbor, who, 
like us, is made in His likeness and im¬ 
age. If we think, my dear children, of 
the great sacrifice Our Lord offered up 
on Calvary, of His precious blood which 
flowed to save each one of us, how 
can we help loving our neighbor? And 
yet, among all the virtues which our 
holy religion calls upon us to practise, 
there is not one so poorly performed. 
The apostle Paul tells us that “ without 
85 


86 


CHARITY. 


charity we are nothing.” And St. Peter 
tells us that “ charity covereth a multi¬ 
tude of sins.” Charity, then, is the first 
and the last of all the virtues, and as I 
have told you in the first chapter of this 
little book of the love which we should 
have for Almighty God, so must I 
explain to you the love which we must 
have for our neighbor. Many of you 
have very affectionate hearts, and you 
love all who are good to you or who 
show a love for you ; but this is not the 
charity of the Christians : the heathens 
do as much. The love of our neighbor 
must be founded in God; that is, we 
must love him for God’s sake alone. Our 
Lord says, “ Love your enemies; do good 
to those who hate you or who calumni¬ 
ate you.” This seems very hard, but 
with God’s grace you can do it. You 
must love, then, a person not only when 
he is good, but you must love him when 
he is bad. Of course you do not love 



CHARITY. 


87 


his faults—far from it; you are sorry to 
see him offend God, and you must show 
your love for him by praying for him 
that he may become good, because he 
is God’s child and our divine Lord 
died on the cross to save him as well as 
He did for you. St. John says, “ Little 
children, love one another,” for by that 
you are known to belong to God. Does 
not our dear Lord let the sun shine on 
the good and the bad alike, and does He 
not send His gifts of health, wealth, and 
all the other earthly blessings to both 
alike? Is He any respecter of persons? 
Does He not take care of the bad child as 
well as of the good one, and when He was 
on earth did He not go about doing 
good to all? Then, if we want to be like 
our good God, we must imitate Him in 
this greatest of all virtues— charity. 

There are many ways for us to practise 
charity besides the love that we feel in 
our hearts for our neighbor. We must 



88 


CHARITY. 


not forget the charity that we must show 
to his faults when he is absent. It is very 
seldom that you meet a person who does 
not speak of the faults of his neighbor 
behind his back, and this is one of the 
greatest sins. In the first place, we may 
exaggerate these faults—that is, we may 
make them out bigger than they are ; and 
in the second place, our neighbor may 
be entirely innocent, and it is so hard to 
repair the injury, to say nothing of the sin. 

Once there was a lady who came 
to a good priest for advice. She told 
him that she had said something about 
her neighbor that she had found out 
since was not true, and she asked 
the priest how she should repair the 
scandal. He told her to go to the fields 
and gather a dandelion-bur, and then 
to stand with her back to the wind and 
blow the seeds from it. She did so 
and went back to him to know what else 
to do; and then he told her to go back 



CHARITY. 


89. 

and pick up every one of those seeds 
and bring them to him. “Oh, father,” 
she said, “ that would be impossible!” 
Whereupon the priest said, “ Even so, 
my child, is the injury you have done 
yourneighbor; it can never be repaired.” 
Remember this story, my dear children, 
when you are speaking of your neighbor 
in his absence. 

Another beautiful manifestation of 
charity is the love for the sick. Always 
try to do something for the sick ; wait on 
them and do all in your power to help 
them and to show your love for them. 

1 need not tell you of charity for the 
poor. Even a child can spare a penny 
of its little savings to give to the poor; 
and, oh, how many pennies go for cakes 
and candy during the year! I saw an 
account of a girl who did without candy 
for a whole year in order to make a 
poor family happy at Christmas. Her 
little savings amounted to eight dollars 



90 


CHARITY. 


and seventy-five cents. How many poor 
children you could clothe if only you 
would remember this! Our Lord once 
said, “ I was hungry, and you gave Me 
not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave 
Me not to drink: I was a stranger, and 
you took Me not in: naked, and you 
clothed Me not: sick, and in prison, and 
you did not visit Me.” And when, dear 
Lord, did we see you in this condition ? 
And Our Lord answered, “ Amen I say 
to you, as long as you did it not to the 
least of your brethren, neither did you 
do it to Me.” So you see whatever we 
do to others our Master considers done 
to Him. Oh, how quickly we could be¬ 
come saints if only we practised charity ! 

Another act of charity which we must 
all practise is prayer. Pray for the 
poor heathen who does not know God, 
for Protestants who do not understand 
our holy religion, for the sick, for the 
dead and the dying. Some day it will 



CHARITY. 


91 


be our turn to lie on our death-bed, and, 
believe me, the prayers that you have 
said for other souls at that hour will cer¬ 
tainly be rewarded by a happy death. 

Now, my dear children, I have given 
you a great deal to do, but, much as it 
seems, it is nothing compared to the re¬ 
ward which our dear Lord has in store 
for you. Heaven is cheap at any price. 
Therefore try very hard to practise the 
virtues that I have proposed in this little 
book, and above all practise charity . 
Why is heaven so beautiful? Because 
they all love there. And what would 
not this earth be if we all loved each 
other and tried to make each other 
happy? Ah, it would be heaven below ! 
Then let us begin here to live this heav¬ 
enly life, that when we are called home 
we mav merit to hear the glad welcome 
from our good God : “ Well done, thou 
good and faithful child. Enter into the 
joys of thy Lord/' 









































’ 









SI)ort Stories from % J3ible. 


f ou are all aware, my dear children, 
that we have a book called the 
Bible, and that from it we learn 
the Word of God. This book is divided 
into two parts: the first part is called 
the Old Testament, and the second part 
is called the New Testament. In the 
first part we learn of the creation of the 
world, with the history of all the great 
men—patriarchs, prophets, and kings— 
during the first ages; and in the second 
part we have the life of Our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, and the account of 
the early Church and the apostles who 
governed it. Th? word Bible means “ the 
book,” and it was written at different 
times by wise and good men, who set 
93 



SHORT STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 


down the thoughts that God put into 
their minds ; so that the Bible is the writ¬ 
ten Word of God. There was not always 
a Bible to tell us about God, but there 
was always a God, as you learn in your 
catechism. He always was, and is, and 
shall be after this world has passed 
away ; for He had no beginning, neither 
will He have an end. He it vyas Who 
created this beautiful world, and all 
that it contains; that means, that He 
made everything out of nothing, be- 
cause He is God. 



GU)c (Erratum. 


LL was darkness. There was no 
shape nor form to anything until 
God spoke and said, “ Let there 
be light,” and at His word the darkness 
was changed into light; and God saw 
the light, and that it was good; and 
God divided the light from the dark¬ 
ness: the light He called Day, and the 
darkness He called Night. In six days 
God made the earth, and this was the 
hrst day’s work. He made the heavens 
or firmament, and He divided the waters 
which were under the firmament from 
the waters that were above ; and this was 
His second day’s work. On the third 
day God separated the land from the 
waters, calling the waters seas and the 
land earth; and at His word the earth 
95 


9 6 


THE CREATION. 


brought forth grass, herbs, trees, and 
flowers of every kind. On the fourth 
day God made the sun to shine by 
d4y, and the moon and stars to give 
light at night. Then God commanded 
the waters to bring forth every kind of 
fish, from the great whale to the tiniest 
minnow that sports in the brooks and 
streams; and He filled the earth with 
cattle and all creeping things—beasts 
of all kinds, from the great elephant to 
the harmless little worm ; and the air 
He filled with birds of all kinds, from 
the big ostrich to the little wren that 
builds her nest in an old thorn-bush. 
This was the work of the fifth day, 
and God saw that it was all good. 

God had created the world in five days, 
but the most wonderful of all created 
beings had not been made. The earth 
was there, and the ocean; both full of 
living creatures, and gay with growing 
plants and grasses. The streams were 



THE CREATION. 


97 


flowing, and the birds were singing, and 
the Ashes were gliding through the wa¬ 
ters, and the great beasts were stalking 
over the face of the green earth, and all 
the little insects sporting in the sunshine. 
All was ready for him whom God had 
determined to make the king of this 
beautiful world ; and this wonderful 
being was man. And the sixth day 
came, and God said, “ Let Us make man 
in Our own image, after Our likeness ; 
and let him have power over the Ash of 
the sea, and over the fowls of the air, 
and over the cattle, and over every 
creeping thing.” So God created man 
out of the dust of the earth, in His own 
image; and He breathed into his nos¬ 
trils the breath of life, and man became 
a living soul. And God said to him, 
“ Behold I have given you every herb, 
and every tree yielding fruit; to you it 
shall be meat.” And to the beasts and 
fowls and every living creature, God 



9 8 


THE CREATION. 


gave every green herb for meat; and 
God placed man over all, and told him 
that he should fill the earth and have 
power over it. And God called the 
man Adam, because he was formed of 
the dust of the earth, holy, happy, and 
free from care and from sin. And God 
placed Adam in a beautiful garden 
called Eden, to keep it and to live in it; 
and He caused all the animals to come 
before Adam, and Adam named them 
all. Must he not have been a wonder¬ 
ful man, this first one that God made, 
to find so many names for all of God’s 
creatures? Now when God had cre¬ 
ated all these things, He looked down 
from heaven on everything that He had 
made, and He saw that it was good ; 
and He rested on the seventh day. 
Wherefore God gave a command after¬ 
wards to His favored people, saying, 
“ Remember that thou keep holy the 
Sabbath day.” And ever since that 



THE CREATION. 


99 


time, in all lands where God is known, 
one day is set apart and kept holy in 
remembrance that God rested on the 
seventh day from His work alter the 
creation of the world. 



&1k iaill of QVbam anb (£ 1 ?c. 


K^lthough God had made Adam 
lord over all things that He had 
created, yet among all these things 
none was found that was fit to be a com¬ 
panion for Adam. So the Lord God said, 
“ It is not good for Adam to be alone : 
let us make him a helpmeet for him.” 
And God caused Adam to fall into a 
deep sleep; and while he slept He took 
from his side one of his ribs, and of 
the man’s rib God formed a woman and 
brought her to Adam, and Adam called 
her Woman; and she became the wife of 
Adam, and the mother of all living, which 
her name Eve means. When God placed 
man in the lovely garden of Eden, He 
gave Adam permission to eat of the fruit 
of every tree except one, which,God told 


100 


THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE. IQ 


him, was the tree of the knowledge of 
good and evil, and of this tree God 
forbade Adam to eat; and God told 
him very plainly that if he ate of the 
fruit of this tree he should surely die. 
Adam and Eve might have continued 
to be holy and happy forever, for their 
life was bright and innocent and blessed 
in the beautiful garden ; but there came 
a wicked spirit called Satan, who is the 
father of lies and of all evil. He was 
envious when he saw the man and his 
wife so happy; so he came in the form 
of a serpent and talked with Eve, and 
persuaded her to eat of the forbidden 
fruit. Then Eve told the serpent that 
God had threatened them with death if 
they ate of the fruit of that tree, but the 
serpent told her that she should not die. 
And Eve listened to the serpent, and she 
took the fruit of the tree and ate it, and 
she gave her husband some of the fruit 
and he ate also. When they had done 



102 


THE FALL OF A DAM AND EVE . 


this they felt afraid, and they feared to 
meet the eye of God. They sewed 
large fig-leaves together to make them¬ 
selves a covering; and when they 
heard the voice of God in the garden in 
the cool of the evening, they tried to 
hide themselves among the trees. And 
God called to Adam, “ Where art thou ? ” 
And Adam answered that he had hidden 
himself because he was afraid. Then 
God, Who knew what they had done, 
asked Adam if he had eaten of the 
forbidden fruit, and Adam answered 
that the woman had given him the fruit; 
and when God asked Eve why she had 
done this she answered that the serpent 
had tempted her. Then God pronounced 
the sentence of punishment upon them 
all. He cursed the serpent above every 
beast of the field, and told him he should 
crawl upon the earth. The woman He 
condemned to a life of sorrow and pain. 
And to Adam God said, “ In the sweat 



THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE. 


103 


of thy brow shalt thou eat bread, till 
thou return unto dust; for dust thou 
art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” 
So God sent Adam and Eve from the 
garden of Eden, and they were obliged 
to work hard and till the ground, to 
plant and to sow, and dig up the thistles, 
until the time should come for them to 
die and return to the dust. 




€ain attb 'Abel. 


nv-yrow I am going to tell you, my dear 
dJjSI children, of some of the people 
mentioned in the Bible, whose 
good example you must learn to imitate, 
and whose bad example you must strive 
to avoid. After our first parents had 
been driven out of the beautiful garden 
of Eden, God gave a little son to Eve, and 
she called his name Cain; afterwards 
she had another son, and she called his 
name Abel. Both of these boys were 
brought up to work. Cain helped his 
father to till the ground and sow the seed, 
that they might have bread, and Abel 
took care of a flock of sheep and was a 
shepherd. Cain had a very high temper, 
and Abel was a very amiable, good boy. 
Of course Abel was loved by God, as 
well as by his parents, more than 
Cain ; and this made Cain jealous. So 

104 


CAIN AND ABEL. 


05 


one day, when they were both in the 
field together, Cain got very angry with 
his brother, and he took a big club and 
killed him. Now God, Who sees every¬ 
thing, saw this terrible murder, and He 
called to Cain and said, “ Where is Abel, 
thy brother? ” And this wicked, guilty 
man told a lie, and he answered, “ I 
know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” 
And God said to him, “What hast thou 
done ? The voice of thy brother’s blood 
cries unto Me from the ground. Here¬ 
after thy punishment shall be to wander 
about the earth and to become an out¬ 
cast and a beggar among men.” See, 
my dear children, what a terrible thing 
it is to yield to the sin of anger. Here 
were two lovely little brothers—the first 
boys on the earth—and behold one a 
murderer! And as long as this world 
lasts, Cain will be spoken of as the 
unhappy man Avho killed his brother in 
anger. 



)e jRoob. 


& FTER the death of Abel, God com¬ 
forted Adam and Eve by giving 
them a son named Seth. In time 
Seth grew to be a man, and he had sons 
and daughters. One of his sons was 
named Henoch. Henoch was a very 
good man, and kept God’s command¬ 
ments, and God loved him so well that He 
took him up to heaven without dying. 
Now Henoch had a son who was named 
Mathusala, who was the oldest man that 
ever lived. He was nearly a thousand 
years old when he died. After this 
time the people who lived in those days 
became so wicked, and their conduct 
displeased God so much, that He was 
sorry that He had made man; and at 
length He determined to destroy all 


THE FLOOD. 


107 


men in a great flood. There was, how¬ 
ever, one good man, named Noe, who 
found grace with God. And God com¬ 
manded him to build an ark, or a great, 
big boat, and to take into it his wife and 
children, and two of all the living crea¬ 
tures that were on the earth, both male 
and female, that they might be safe 
when God should send the flood to 
drown the world. And Noe did as 
God told him. He went to work to 
build the ark, and while it was building 
he begged the people to turn from their 
wicked ways and help him to prepare 
this big boat to save them from destruc¬ 
tion. But no one would listen to him ; 
they laughed at Noe, as many people 
do nowadays when you try to convert 
them. The ark was building many 
years; and at last, when it was finished, 
Noe made all the animals enter the 
ark two and two ; and then he went in, 
and all the members of his family, and 



THE FLOOD. 


108 

God shut them in. And then in His 
anger He rained down from heaven, 
and the waters of the sea overflowed 
and spread over the top of the earth, 
till the houses, the trees, and even the 
tops of the highest mountains were cov¬ 
ered with deep water. The rain lasted 
forty days and forty nights, and the 
whole earth was like a great sea which 
washed away every living thing. Ever) 
the birds of the air were drowned, for 
there was nothing left on which they 
could rest their feet, and when the rain 
stopped it was many weeks before the 
waters dried away from the face of the 
earth. 

Only Noe and his family were safe 
in the ark, and at last it rested on Mount 
Ararat; and Noe opened the window 
to look out, but he saw nothing but 
water everywhere—no green trees or 
flowers, not a living creature, could be 
seen. But Noe sent out a raven and a 



THE FLOOD. 


IO9 


dove from the ark to find out if the 
waters were drying up. The raven flew 
backward and forward, and at last disap¬ 
peared ; but the little dove could not 
find a place to rest her foot, so she came 
back to the ark, and Noe put out his 
hand and took her in again. Seven 
days after he sent the dove again out of 
the ark, and in the evening she came 
back with a little olive-leaf in her beak; 
and Noe knew that the tops of the 
trees could be seen, but that the earth 
was still under water, because the dove 
could not find a shelter. So he waited 
another week, and again sent the dove, 
and she did not come back again ; so 
Noe knew that the earth was dry, and 
he took the covering off the ark. And 
God spoke to him and told him to go 
out of the ark, and to take his wife and 
his sons and daughters, and every living 
thing that was with him, and go on the 
earth. And Noe went out as God 




IO 


THE FLOOD. 


commanded; and the first thing that 
he did when he got out was to build an 
altar and offer up a holy sacrifice to 
God in thanksgiving for His mercy in 
preserving him from the flood. And 
God told him that He would never 
again destroy the world with water; 
and as a sign of His promise He would 
place a beautiful rainbow in the clouds, 
that whenever we looked at it we might 
think of His promise. So whenever 
you see this pretty bow you must re¬ 
member this story of the justice and 
mercy of our great and good God. 



®l)c Sacrifice of QUmtljam. 

%SAAC was the son of Abraham and 
Sara, and was called “ the child of 
promise,” because he had been 
promised to them by God, and also be¬ 
cause he was to inherit the promises made 
by God to Abraham when he grew up. 
He was good and gentle, and obedient 
to his parents in all things. When he 
was grown to be quite a big boy, God 
wished to try the faith of both Abraham 
and Isaac. He knew the hearts of both, 
but still He made a trial of the love of 
the one and of the obedience of the 
other. To prove that Abraham really 
loved his God more than he loved his 
only child, God ordered the kind father 
to take his son and to offer him up, as 
lambs and other animals used to be of- 


I 12 


THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. 


fered, on an altar, as a sacrifice to Him. 
Abraham saddled his ass, cut down 
wood for the fire, and went with his 
little son to the land of Moria, where 
God had told him to offer this terrible 
sacrifice. When they came to the 
place, Isaac carried the wood upon 
which his father intended to sacrifice 
him; and as he put it down on the 
ground he said, “ Father, we have all 
things ready but the victim.” And his 
father answered and said, “You are the 
victim, my son; you are the lamb to be 
sacrificed.” Only think what it cost 
poor old Abraham to say these words 
to his dear little son. But he was obe¬ 
dient to God, and he took his boy Isaac 
and bound him down with a cord to the 
wood, and he stretched forth his hand, 
holding a knife, to kill his only son, 
because God had commanded it. But 
when God had proved Abraham He 
stayed the hand of His faithful servant; 



THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. I I 3 

and just as he had raised the knife to 
slay his darling, an angel appeared and 
told him that God was satisfied ; and he 
showed Abraham a ram caught by the 
horns in a thicket close by, and the angel 
told Abraham to offer up the ram as a 
sacrifice instead of his son. And God 
made a promise to Abraham, saying, 
“ Because thou hast not withheld from 
Me thy son, thine only son, in blessing 
I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy 
family as the stars of heaven, and as the 
sand which is upon the sea-shore, be¬ 
cause thou hast obeyed My voice.” 



Joscpl) anb l)is Brethren. 

S he Bible contains a great many very 
beautiful stories, but there is not 
one so touching as the one that I 
am about to tell you. It is a story of re¬ 
pentance and forgiveness, and thousands 
of little children have been made* wiser 
and better by the story of Joseph and 
his brethren. The patriarchs Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob were shepherds—that 
is, they took care of sheep. The shep¬ 
herds in those days were obliged to 
watch their flocks by day and by night, 
for fear of their being eaten up by 
wolves or bears and lions. Now Jacob 
had twelve sons. Their names were 
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Juda, Dan, Neph- 
thali, Gad, Aser, Issachar, Zabulon, 
Joseph, and little Benjamin. Jacob 

114 


JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. I 1 5 

loved these two younger sons more than 
he did the others, because they were 
the children of his favorite wife Rachel. 
The kindness and love that he showed 
these two little boys made the other ten 
sons very jealous. Jacob made Joseph 
a coat of many colors, and this present 
raised the envy of Joseph’s brothers and 
made them hate him more and more. 
They gave way to this wicked thought 
and suffered the sins of jealousy and 
murder to enter their hearts. So one 
day Joseph was sent to them in the 
field by their father Jacob, and Joseph 
went to a place called Dothain, where 
his brothers were feeding their flocks. 
And when they saw him coming they 
said one to another, “ Let us kill him 
and cast him into a pit, and we will say 
some wild beast hath eaten him up.” 
But Reuben, the eldest of the brethren, 
was not so cruel, and he determined to 
save little Joseph if he could ; so he 



I l6 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. 


said, “ Shed no blood, but let us throw 
him into the pit in the wilderness.” 
So when Joseph came up to his 
brothers they stripped him of his little 
coat of many colors, and took him and 
cast him into a deep pit; but the pit 
was empty—there was no water in it. 
Reuben went away, thinking that Joseph 
was safe, and the rest of the brothers sat 
down to eat. While they were eating, 
a company of Ismaelites came by on 
their camels. They were carrying 
merchandise to a city in Egypt to sell 
it there. Seeing this, Juda, one of the 
brothers, said, “ What will it profit us to 
kill our brother and hide his blood? 
Come, let us sell him to the Ismaelites.” 
And the rest agreed to this. So they 
took little Joseph out of the pit and sold 
him as a slave to the Ismaelites for 
twenty pieces of silver; and the Is¬ 
maelites took him away with them. 
When Reuben came back to the pit and 



JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. I I J 

saw that Joseph was no longer there, he 
cried out with grief. But the rest of 
the brethren took Joseph’s little coat 
and killed a kid, and dipped the coat in 
the blood; and they carried home the 
coat to their old father, and said, “ We 
have found this coat: is it Joseph’s 
coat?” And the poor old man knew it 
was Joseph’s coat, and he said, “ It is 
my little son’s coat, and a wild beast 
has eaten him up.” And poor old Jacob 
mourned for his son a long time, and 
his sons and his daughters tried to com¬ 
fort him, but they could not; he wept 
long and bitterly for his little son. 
Meanwhile Joseph was travelling with 
the Ismaelite merchants into the land 
of Egypt, and there he was sold to an 
officer named Putiphar, who was cap¬ 
tain of the guard to Pharao, king of the 
country; and Putiphar made him a 
servant in his house. Now Putiphar 
soon saw what a blessing he had in hav- 




I I 8 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. 


ing Joseph in his house, who was a 
servant of the Lord God ; and in time 
he came to trust Joseph and to love him 
so much that he made him overseer or 
steward of his house and all that be¬ 
longed to him ; he did not even take 
account of his property, leaving every¬ 
thing to his faithful servant. And so 
Joseph grew to be a useful and a hand¬ 


some man. 



Joscpl) ti )t fttiler of (£gijpt. 


'vjp'HE king heard of Joseph’s wisdom, 
and he sent for him one day to 
tell him the meaning of a dream 
that he had. And God inspired Joseph 
to interpret this dream, which was that 
there would be a great famine in the 
land—that means that the corn and 
wheat and fruit and vegetables would 
all die for the want of rain. And Joseph 
advised King Pharao to fill his barns 
and all his storehouses with grain, so 
that he would be prepared for the fam¬ 
ine. And when Pharao listened to the 
words of this wise young man, in whom 
the Spirit of God was, he knew that it 
would not be easy to find another like 
him; so turning to Joseph, he said, 


I 20 JOSEPH THE RULER OF EGYPT. 


“ As God has shown thee all this, thou 
shalt be over my house; and according 
to thy word shall my people be ruled. 
See, I have set thee over all the land of 
Egypt.” And Pharao took a ring from 
his finger and put it upon Joseph’s hand, 
and he caused Joseph to be dressed in 
beautiful garments, and he put a gold 
chain around his neck and gave him 
one of his best carriages to ride in. And 
the people were ordered to bow down 
before Joseph, who was made ruler over 
all the land of Egypt; and when he 
was thirty years of age he married a 
nice woman named Aseneth. And God 
blessed Joseph in all that he did, and 
He made him the father of two sons, 
whom Joseph named Manasses and 
Ephraim—which mean “ forgetting ” 
and “fruitful”—for Joseph said, “ The 
Lord hath made me forget all my toil, 
and He hath made me fruitful in the 



JOSEPH THE RULER OF EGYPT. I 2 I 


land of my captivity.” And Joseph 
caused the people to fill all the barns 
and the storehouses; and he stored up 
corn and provisions as the sand of the sea. 
And soon the famine began to affect the 
people of the land. You see, my dear 
children, that whatever God says will 
surely happen. And Joseph opened 
the storehouses and sold corn to the 
Egyptians, and many other countries 
sent to Joseph in Egypt to buy corn. 
All this time Jacob had been grieving 
for his dear son, whom he supposed 
dead. He little thought that God had 
spared Joseph to comfort him and all 
his family in his old age. And now 
when the famine came into the land 
where Jacob lived, his sons looked at 
one another in doubt what to do. And 
Jacob said to them, “ Go down into 
Egypt and buy corn for us, that we may 
live and not die ; ” for Jacob had heard 



122 JOSEPH THE RULER OF EGYPT. 

that there was plenty of corn in Egypt. 
So Jacob’s ten sons went to Egypt to 
buy corn ; and so after man)" years the 
brothers who had plotted to kill Joseph 
stood before him again. 



Soscpl^s ttcueitgc. 


^tSoSEPH knew his brothers when he 
saw them bowing down before him 
with their faces to the earth : but 
they did not recognize their poor, ill-used 
brother in the fine, handsome man who 
was ruler over the land of Egypt. 
Joseph behaved like a stranger to them, 
and spoke harshlj- ; he asked them from 
what country they came, and he treated 
them like spies. They solemnly de¬ 
clared the truth to Joseph, and told him 
that they all were the sons of one man, 
and that they had been driven by ne¬ 
cessity to take the long journey into 
Egypt to purchase food. Joseph felt 
quite glad when they spoke of their 
younger brother whom they had left at 
home with their father; but he would 


123 


124 


JOSEPH'S 'REVENGE. 


not. show his joy. He told them that he 
could not believe their story unless their 
younger brother would come to prove 
the truth of their words. So he caused 
them to be guarded three days; and on 
the third day he went to them and told 
them that he should keep one of the 
brothers with him until they returned, 
and to go back to their father with 
the corn, but “ bring back your youngest 
brother to me, that your words may be 
proven true.” And the brothers looked 
at one another, and Reuben said, “This 
is the punishment of our guilt against 
our brother Joseph;” and Joseph was 
obliged to turn away his head, to hide 
his tears when he heard these words. 
So he commanded the sacks to be filled 
with corn, and the money that they had 
brought for payment to be put in the 
sacks. Greatly were they astonished 
when they saw the money in their sacks. 
Jacob was also afraid when he saw the 



JOSEPH'S REVENGE. 


1 2 5 

money, and he trembled at the idea of 
parting- with Benjamin, and said, “ My 
son shall not go down with you; for his 
brother is dead, and he is left alone: if 
anything should happen to him on the 
way, you will bring down my gray hairs 
with sorrow to the grave.” But the 
famine was still heavy in the land, and 
again the brothers had to go to Egypt 
to buy corn; then with great sorrow 
did old Jacob consent to Benjamin’s 
going with them. And they went, and 
bowed down again before Joseph, whose 
heart leaped for joy when he saw Ben¬ 
jamin ; and he said, “ God be gracious 
to thee, my son;” but he could not keep 
from crying at the sight of his dear 
brother’s face. And Joseph ordered the 
sacks to be filled with corn again, and 
the money to be returned also; and into 
Benjamin’s sack he had his silver cup 
placed, that he might try his brothers 
still further of the good and evil in their 



12 6 


JOSEPH'S REVENGE . 


hearts. But before they had gone far 
on their journey, the sons of Jacob were 
frightened to find the silver cup in Ben¬ 
jamin’s sack; and the steward of Joseph 
overtook them, and accused them of 
taking it. In sorrow they again re¬ 
turned to the city, and hastened to throw 
themselves at the feet of Joseph. He 
pretended to be very angry, and said, 
“ What deed is this that you have done ? ” 
And Juda said, “ How shall we clean 
ourselves? God is now punishing us 
for our sins.” But Joseph answered and 
said, “ He in whose sack the cup has 
been found must be my servant; the 
rest may return to their father.” And 
Juda begged Joseph to allow him to 
speak, and he said, “ We have a father, 
an old man, and a child of his old age, a 
little one; and his brother is dead, and 
he is all that is left of his mother, and our 
father loveth him. We cannot go back 
to him without Benjamin, for our father 



JOSEPH'S REVENGE. 


127 


will die; and I, thy servant, became 
surety for the lad unto my father. Let 
the lad go with his brothers, lest some 
evil come unto my father; and I will 
leave my wife and children, and become 
thy slave, that Benjamin may go back 
and comfort our father.” Was this 
not kind and generous in Juda? Joseph 
was so touched to the heart that he could 
no longer keep from telling his brothers 
who he was; and he embraced them 
all, and when he came to Benjamin he 
fell upon his neck and cried. He kissed 
them all, and told them to hasten back 
to their father, and to tell him that God 
had made him lord of all Egypt, and to 
bring him, and their wives and children, 
and flocks and cattle, and come and 
dwell in the land of Gessen ; and that 
he would take care of them all. The 
sons of Jacob arrived safely at their 
journey’s end ; and they said to their 
father, “ Joseph is alive, and he is gov- 



128 


JOSEPH'S REVENGE. 


ernor over all the land of Egypt.” Then 
Jacob fainted for joy, for he could hardly 
believe the good news ; and when he re¬ 
covered, and saw the wagons which 
Joseph had sent to carry him down to 
Egypt, he said, “ It is enough; Joseph 
my son is yet alive : I will go and see him 
before I die.” And when Jacob came near 
Gessen, Joseph went out in his chariot 
to meet his father. Oh, the joy of meet- 
ing again after so many long years! 
The father had grown old and gray ; the 
youthful Joseph was a man of middle 
age ; but they had not forgotten the love 
of former years. The old man could 
only exclaim, “ Now let me die, since I 
have seen thy face, because thou art yet 
alive.” And years afterwards poor old 
Jacob died. Joseph wept over his 
father, and kissed him, and then took 
his body up into the land of Chanaan, 
and there he buried Jacob beside his 
loving wife Lia. And so the dust of the 
aged patriarch rested at last in peace. 



Joseph's £ast Sears anb Death* 


FTER their return into Egypt, the 
brothers of Joseph began to be 
afraid that, now their old father 
was dead, Joseph might be unkind to 
them and punish them for their former 
ill-conduct towards him. You see, my 
dear children, what cowards sin makes 
of us all. When we have done what we 
know to be wrong we cannot be happy, 
even if we escape punishment from 
man, because God has put into the 
heart of every one a feeling called con¬ 
science; and this conscience is always 
troubling the wicked and making them 
afraid. And now, although Joseph had 
pardoned them, and saved their lives, 
and made them presents, and been kind 
to them, his brothers could not forget 
129 


130 JOSEPH'S LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 

the evil they had done to him in his 
youth; so they went and fell down be¬ 
fore him and prayed him to forgive 
them. Joseph answered them with 
tears of love, and said, “Fear not, for I 
am in the place of God.” Then he told 
them to remember that God had turned 
the evil they meant against him into 
good for them all; and he promised to 
take care of them and their little chil¬ 
dren as long as he should live. What a 
lesson this is for you, my dear little chil¬ 
dren! Joseph knew that to God alone 
belonged the vengeance and the pay¬ 
ment of injuries, and that He would 
take care of him. Many hundreds of 
years afterwards, Our Lord Jesus said 
to those who came to hear Him : “ If 
thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he is 
thirsty, give him drink: for in so doing 
you heap coals of fire on his head.” In 
this spirit Joseph acted towards his 
brethren. They had treated him as an 



JOSEPH'S LAST YEARS AND DEA TH. I 3 I 

enemy: he in return fed and took care 
of them ; he returned blessings for 
curses and good for evil. Should not 
this be a lesson to us all? 

Joseph lived many years in Egypt, 
beloved by all. He lived to see his 
children, his grandchildren and their 
children growing up around his knee, 
and he made them promise to live a good 
and a useful life, as he had done. And 
when he was a hundred and ten years 
old he died, and they placed his body in 
a coffin and took him also into Chanaan, 
to bury him with Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob; and his soul was at peace with 
his God, Whom he had loved and served 
so well. 



ittoscs. 


great number of years had passed 
since the Israelites settled in 
Egypt. A wicked king named 
Pharao sat upon the throne, and he 
made the Israelites work as slaves, and 
ordered all their male children to be 
killed. There was a man of the tribe of 
Levi named Amram, and he married a 
woman whose name was Jochabed; and 
God gave them a little boy who was a 
very handsome child. You can imagine 
what sorrow the poor mother felt when 
she looked at this beautiful baby and 
thought that it must be killed. So God 
put it into her heart to save the child, 
and to keep him hid for three months. 
She made for little Moses a little ark or 
cradle of strong rushes; and she put 
132 


MOSES. 


133 


pitch and clay on the outside, to keep 
the water from getting through ; and 
she laid her dear little babe in this 
cradle and carried him, with many 
prayers and tears, to the brink of the 
river Nile, and she hid him in the 
flags that grew near the shore. The 
merciful God heard her prayers and 
preserved the life of her child; for 
when Pharao’s daughter came down 
to wash herself in the river she saw the 
cradle among the flags, and she sent her 
maid to fetch it to her; and when she 
opened it she saw the child, and the 
little baby cried. Then her heart was 
full of sorrow for it, and she knew that 
some poor Hebrew mother had hid¬ 
den her helpless little baby there; so 
she determined to save its life. Now 
Jochabed had left her daughter near by 
to watch what would happen to the 
babe; and the girl went forward and 
said to the princess, “ Shall I go and 



134 


MOSES. 


call a nurse of the Hebrew women, that 
she may nurse the child for thee ? ” 
And Pharao’s daughter said, “ Go.” 
Then the girl went and called Jochabed, 
and Pharao’s daughter said, “Take 
this child away and nurse it for me.” 
And the fond mother took the child 
and nursed her own baby. The prin¬ 
cess called the child Moses, and he 
grew in age and grace, and was brought 
up at the court of Pharao as if he 
had been the princess’s own son. Many 
years afterwards Moses became the 
leader of God’s chosen people; and to 
him God gave the Ten Commandments, 
engraved on tables of stone, which 
commandments you all know from your 
catechism. 



Ehithb. 


^vTT^HERE was once a very wicked king 
named Saul. He was so wicked 
that he could not even sleep; for 
he was afraid that some one would mur¬ 
der him if he closed his eyes. So his 
friends, fearing that he would die for 
the want of sleep, did all they could to 
make him forget his misery; and one 
day they brought him a young shep¬ 
herd, a lad named David, who played 
the harp beautifully, to see if his sweet 
music would divert the mind of the 
king. Saul was so delighted with 
David’s music that he sent to ask 
David’s father to let him live with him ; 
for no sooner did David begin to play 
on his harp than King Saul was quieted 
135 


DA VID. 


*36 

and would go to sleep like a child. 
But David was not only a clever musi¬ 
cian, he was also very brave although 
he was so young. One day, when 
he was keeping his father’s sheep, 
there came a lion and a bear to steal 
the sheep. Little David prayed to 
God to help him ; and God gave him 
strength to kill both of these strong 
animals without any help or assistance 
irom any one. Soon after he went to 
live with Saul; and God permitted the 
Philistines, with a powerful arm}’ and 
a great giant at their head, to come 
into the kingdom of Saul to scare him. 
Now, when David heard of this, he de¬ 
termined to go forth and meet this 
great giant, who was armed with a 
sword and a spear. So when he came 
near this strong man, all covered with 
a coat of brass, Goliath—for that was 
the giant’s name—laughed at him, and 
told him “ that he would kill him if he 



DA VID. 


137 


came nearer, and would give his flesh to 
the birds of the air to eat.” David, 
however, prayed to God for strength, 
and he trusted his God. He made 
a simple little sling out of a slip of 
leather, and took a few little stones in 
his hand and went forward to meet this 
great giant; and as he came near to 
him he put a stone in the sling and let it 
fly ; and the stone hit the giant on the 
forehead, and it sank into his head, so 
that Goliath fell dead upon the ground. 
Then David cut off the head of this 
great man, and the army of the Philis¬ 
tines ran away. And when the people 
heard of this great victory of David 
they sang a song of praise to his bra¬ 
very. This made King Saul very jeal¬ 
ous, and he sought to take David’s life, 
so that he had to hide from him ; and 
the king’s son Jonathan, who loved 
David very much, helped to save him 
from the anger of his father. But God 



t 38 


DA VID. 


punished Saul for being so cruel to 
David, for there was afterwards a ter¬ 
rible battle at Gelboe; and Jonathan and 
two other sons of Saul were killed, and 
Saul killed himself in despair. 



®l}c Cljilb Samuel. 


T is very pleasant to read about the 
childhood of Samuel, the great 
prophet in Israel. He was indeed 
a good and happy child. The meaning 
of his name is “Asked of God.” His. 
mother, who had no children, prayed to 
God for a child, and God, after He had 
tried her patience for some time; gave 
her a little son, whom she called Samuel. 
Anna, the mother, sang a hymn of joy 
to God when he was born; she was so 
thankful to her Heavenly Father for this 
child that she determined to give him 
to the service of God as soon as he 
could talk. So when he was only four 
years old she brought him to Heli, the 
high-priest at Silo. The Jews had a 
different form of religion from ours— 
139 


§ 



140 


THE CHILD SAMUEL . 


that is, they worshipped God in a differ¬ 
ent manner. The high-priest taught the 
people what they must do; and Anna 
thought she could not put little Samuel 
in a better place than in the house with 
Heli, who took care of the temple of 
God. She wished Heli to teach her 
little son how to serve the Lord ; so she 
placed him under his care. She lived a 
long way off from Silo, but every year 
she came up to see her beloved child, 
and she used to bring him a present of 
a little white linen dress. This dress or 
gown was like those worn by our priests; 
it had long sleeves and came down to 
his feet, and little Samuel looked just 
like a little priest. He was a very happy 
child, waiting upon Heli and attending 
to the house of God ; and God’s eyes 
were upon him; and He was pleased to 
see the seeds of good expanding in his 
heart. Now Heli had two sons, and 
they were both bad boys. This old man 



THE CHILD SAMUEL. 


141 


loved his God, and in many ways served 
Him truly ; but he overindulged his chil¬ 
dren: when they committed sin in their 
childhood, their father was too fond of 
them to correct or punish them, as he 
ought to have done; and as they grew 
older they grew more and more wicked, 
and they disobeyed the commands of 
God and their kind parent. They cared 
for nothing but good eating and drinking, 
and their own pleasure and amusement ; 
and so they went on from bad to worse, 
until one day their father spoke to them, 
and said, “ My sons, why do you so? 
for I hear from every one of your evil 
doings, and you make the Lord’s people 
sin.” He meant by this that the bad ex¬ 
ample of the high-priest’s sons led other 
people to do evil. But these wicked 
men paid no attention to their old father, 
and they went on still more wickedly, 
until God sent a message to their father, 
which was that He would cause both of 




142 


THE CHILD SAMUEL. 


these sons to be killed in one day, and 
that none of Heli’s family should ever be 
priests after him, because he had not 
controlled his children better. Now 
this message was sent to Heli by little 
Samuel. One night, when Samuel was 
sleeping in his little bed, some distance 
from Heli, he heard a voice calling, 
“ Samuel, Samuel! ” and Samuel thought 
that Heli, who was very old, and whose 
eyes were so dim that he could not see 
to wait upon himself, wanted him ; so he 
answered quickly, “ Here I am,” and 
jumped up and ran to Heli, to know 
what he wanted. Heli answered him, 
“ I called you not: lie down again.” And 
God called again to Samuel, and again 
he went to the old man, and said, “ Here 
am I;” and Heli answered, “I called 
not, my son : lie down again.” And the 
good Lord called Samuel again, the third 
time, and he arose and went again to 
Heli, and said, “ I am here : for thou 



THE CHILD SAMUEL. 


H3 


didst call me.” And then Heli knew 
that our God called the child ; so he told 
him to “ go, lie down again,” and if God 
called again, to say, “ Speak, Lord, for 
Thy servant heareth.” So Samuel 
went and lay down again in his little 
bed; and God called again, and Samuel 
answered as Heli had told him. And 
sorrowful were the words which he 
heard from the Lord ; for He told him 
of all the evil and punishment that He 
was going to bring upon Heli and his 
house, because the weak old man had 
not punished his sons for sinning. And 
Samuel hated to tell Heli this dreadful 
news; so he went about his business 
and began to open the doors of God’s 
house, when Heli called him and com¬ 
manded him to tell him all that he had 
heard from God. Now, although Heli 
was a weak old father, still, when he 
heard of the punishment that God was 
going to send him, he said, “ It is the 



144 


THE CHILD SAMUEL. 


Lord : let Him do what seemeth good 
for Heli loved God, and now he knew 
that little Samuel was a “ prophet”—that 
is, a person to whom God shows the 
things that are to happen at a future 
time. And all that God told Samuel 
came true; for the two wicked sons of 
Heli were both killed in battle in one 
day, and as soon as this poor old man of 
ninety years of age heard the sad news, 
he fell backwards off his seat, and his 
neck was broken in the fall; so he died. 
Was that not a sad end for a man who 
had been God’s high-priest for so many 
years? Samuel was very much grieved 
for the loss of his kind friend, but he 
tried the harder to please and serve his 
God ; and when the people saw that the 
prophecies of this young servant of God 
came true, they honored him and be¬ 
lieved him, and he lived many years as 
a judge and a prophet in Israel. 



(Elias. 


S here was once a very good man, 
named Elias, who was sent by God 
to live with a poor widow and her 
son during the time of a famine. This 
poor woman had only a little meal and a 
very small quantity of oil; and just as the 
prophet Elias came to her, she was going 
to make a little cake of this, fearing it 
was the last meal they were likely to get, 
and knowing that they must soon die of 
hunger. As soon as Elias saw her about 
to make the cake, he told her to bake 
the first one for him, and she cheerfully 
obeyed him. And the oil and the barrel 
of meal lasted, although she used some 
every day, until the rain came and the 
famine was over. But during this time 
the widow’s little son was taken sick, 
145 


146 


ELIAS. 


and he died, and the poor mother 
grieved a great deal. But Elias took the 
child, and carried him up into a loft, and 
laid him on his own bed, and there 
he prayed earnestly to God; and he 
stretched himself three times upon the 
child, saying, “ O Lord my God, I 
pray Thee, let this child’s soul come 
into him again.” And God heard the 
prayer of Elias, and the soul of the child 
came into him again. So Elias carried 
him down to his mother, and said, 
“ See, thy son liveth ; ” and the woman 
said, “ Now, by this I know that thou 
art a man of God, and the word in thy 
mouth is truth.” How could the widow 
help believing in God and in His proph¬ 
et Elias? for Elias had kept her and 
her son from dying of starvation, when 
many poor people, at that time, went for 
days without food or even water, be¬ 
cause there had been no rain for a long 
time, and even the waters were all dried 



ELIAS . 


147 

up. And lastly, Elias had brought her 
child to life. How could she help lov¬ 
ing a God Who had giyen such power 
to man? Learn from this story, my 
dear children, to have great confidence 
in God. Elias prayed with faith. He 
knew that God would hear his prayer, 
and that He would answer it in order 
that this poor widow might be converted 
to Him; God rewarded his faith by 
bringing the soul back into the child, 
and the widow and her little son were 
both converted to God. 



(Eliseus. 


f>*-> «-y 

g LlSEUS lived many years with the 
prophet Elias; and after God 
had taken Elias to heaven, He 
sent His Holy Spirit upon Eliseus, 
and permitted Him to perform almost 
the same miracles that Elias had done 
before; for Eliseus also restored a 
little boy to life whose mother had 
been kind to him. God also gave 
Eliseus power to punish wicked chil¬ 
dren. He used to travel about from 
place to place, where God sent him. 
He was no longer a young man, and his 
hair was very thin from age and toil. 
So one day Eliseus was going up to a 
town where the people worshipped 
idols. A great many idle children came 
out of the city to play, and when they 
met Eliseus these wicked children began 
to laugh at him and to mock him, say- 

148 


ELISEUS. 


149 


ing, “ Go up, old bald head ; go up, old 
bald head.” Now God was very angry 
with these bad children, and Eliseus was 
also angry. He turned around and told 
them that something dreadful would 
happen to them for mocking a servant 
of God; and scarcely had he spoken to 
them when two bears came rushing out 
of the woods near by, and tore them all 
to pieces—forty-two of them. Only 
think of it! Tears and screams were all 
in vain; they could not run away from 
the punishment God had sent upon 
them, any more than you, my dear 
children, can run away from sickness or 
death. How careful, then, should you 
be not to treat any of God’s holy things 
with mockery! for as surely as you do. 
He will punish you. Neither must you 
laugh at the lame, nor the blind, nor at 
any one who is sent to teach you holy 
things. 



&l)e kittle €a;pttt)£ ittaih. 

t T is more pleasant to hear of good 
children than of naughty ones; so 
I will change the subject and tell 
you of a little captive girl who waited 
upon Naaman’s wife. Naaman was a 
great and honorable captain, but he had 
a terrible disease called leprosy. This 
little Hebrew girl loved her master and 
her mistress very much, but she loved 
her God and His prophet Eliseus more; 
and she knew that Eliseus could per¬ 
form wonderful cures with the help of 
God. So she told her mistress of Eli¬ 
seus, and at last Naaman went to see 
him; and the good old prophet told 
him of God, and sent him to wash in 
the river Jordan ; and immediately the 
150 


THE LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. \ 5 I 

leprosy was cured. See how much 
good was done by this pious and affec¬ 
tionate little captive girl. Learn to 
render ail the service in your power, 
not only for the relief of your neigh¬ 
bor’s body, but for his immortal soul. 



Jfob. 

* imagine that all of you children 
have heard of Job, for he was the 
most patient man that ever lived. 
God suffered the devil to tempt him 
and to try him with pains, losses, and 
bereavements, but nothing could shake 
his faith in God. God sent thunder¬ 
bolts and slew his servants ; He caused 
the house-top to fall in and bury all 
of his children; his oxen and servants 
were carried away by the Sabeans, and 
his sheep were destroyed by fire; but 
Job still worshipped God ; and when a 
servant came running to tell him of all 
these disasters he did not repine or re¬ 
bel against God, but he bowed his head 
and said very meekly, “The Lord gave, 
and the Lord hath taken away; blessed 
152 


JOB. 


153 


be the name of the Lord.” What an 
example we have in holy Job of submis¬ 
sion to the holy will of God! and thus 
we should bear sorrow when it pleases 
God to afflict us. We see Job in pic¬ 
tures covered with sores, his house in 
flames, deserted by his friends, ridi¬ 
culed by his unholy wife, calmly say¬ 
ing, “What? shall we receive good at 
the hand of God, and shall we not re¬ 
ceive evil?” At last, in the midst of 
his troubles, God had compassion on 
him on account of his humble submis¬ 
sion to his Master’s will, and He re¬ 
stored him to health and to his friends, 
and gave him riches and comforts that 
he never possessed before. Truly God 
can do all things. He may try us to 
prove us, but He can and will reward 
all those who bear their crosses and 
trials patiently. May we all learn from 
poor old Job to say with our whole 
hearts, “ Thy will be done !” 



JBaniel in tl)e Cions 1 EDcn. 


S here was once a king named 
Darius, and there was living in 
his kingdom a young Jewish 
prince named Daniel. Daniel loved 
God and served Him faithfully, and 
God gave him power to foretell future 
events, and on this account he was 
called a prophet. Now, when Darius 
the king heard of these wonderful tal¬ 
ents of Daniel, he made him a chief 
ruler among the people, and he intend¬ 
ed to put the whole kingdom under 
him. This made the people jealous and 
envious of Daniel; but as they could 
find no fault in Daniel, they persuaded 
the king to make a law that no person 
should ask anything for thirty days, 
save of the king himself; and the king 
consented to it, and he had it published 
that whosoever should break this law 


154 


DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 


155 


should be cast into a den of lions. The 
fear of this dreadful death did not pre¬ 
vent Daniel from saying- his prayers 
three times a day. So the envious peo¬ 
ple told the king that Daniel had dis¬ 
obeyed his law and that he must be put 
to death. The king was very sorry to 
hear this, for he loved Daniel, and he 
regretted that he had made such a law; 
and he tried very hard to save him, but 
for his word’s sake he was obliged to 
have Daniel thrown into the den with 
the lions, and the den was covered with 
a stone and sealed up with the king’s 
seal. God, however, saw Daniel and 
heard his prayer, and He sent an 
angel to stop up the lions’ mouths, so 
that they could not hurt Daniel, and the 
lions came and lay down at his feet. 
And the king was delighted to hear that 
Daniel was alive the next morning; and 
he made another law that all the people 
of his kingdom should fear and tremble 



I56 DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 


before the God of Daniel, that there 
was no other god who could deliver 
from the lions. So Daniel lived, honored 
and loved by all, for many years, and 
died at a good old age. 

This story you will find in a book 
called after his name. There are many 
other books in the Old Testament, my 
dear children, which, when you are 
older, you can read for your edification. 
I have selected these few stories to in¬ 
spire you with a love for the holy 
Word of God. At some future day I 
shall give you from the New Testament 
the life of our dear Lord and the his¬ 
tory of the Church from His death to 
the present day. May what I have 
written be an incentive to your leading 
good and holy Christian lives, and 
thereby secure for you an immortal 
crown in heaven! 


PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 

































v* t 


v c . ‘ • a - - 

■ 




A 










« 




,*^ V* 






■>j 






W* 


•v* 




» ^ 


*Hr 4 


ftp s. 




Ft 


k «* 






*2* 








